An hour ago I just launched a new eBook on my photography blog – it’s called Transcending Travel and is a guide to Travel Photography.
Every time I mention my eBooks I am asked for tips on how to put them together. I’ve written a few times before on the topic but thought I’d share a few of the lessons I’ve learned while launching this particular eBook.
- Partner with good People – collaboration is a powerful thing. While I know a thing or two about photography – I’m no travel photography expert. So when thinking about this book I decided that the best way to produce it would be to find someone with expertise in the field to author it. I chose to work with Mitchell Kanashkevich for two reasons – firstly he’s a travel photographer who knows what he’s doing and secondly, he’d already produced his own eBooks – this showed he was able to stick with a project and also gave me something to look at to judge the quality of his work.
- The Front Cover is Important – Test it! – in the last week one of the biggest things we’ve had to decide upon is the front cover – in particularly the image on it. We considered 6-7 of them and while I thought I knew which one would work best – I found with a few quick tests that I was wrong. I drew together 3 groups of people to test it and found that the one we’ve gone with works a lot better.
- Pre Buzz Helps – previously when I’ve launched eBooks on dPS I’ve been in such a frenzy getting them together that I’ve not put a lot of time into pre-launching them. I could still do better on this front with Transcending Travel – however I’ve worked harder at doing some pre launch activities in newsletters, on social media, with some guest posts from Mitchell introducing the topic etc. It seems to have paid off with qutie a few readers eagerly anticipating this launch.
- Get Help – not only have I involved another author in this eBook but there has been a number of people who’ve helped pull it together. A great Designer, proof reader and a cast of at least another 10 people who’ve bounced ideas around with me for everything from titles to sales pages to sales emails. I pay for designers/proof reader services but the rest is collaboration and friend helping friends – a network is so good to have at a time like this.
- Bonuses – this launch I’m going for a twin barrel bonus strategy. We’re offering a 25% off discount during launch week but also have partnered with two companies to give readers discounts on products and a third company to offer some prizes. It’ll be interesting to see how they pay off!
- It’s fun – one of the things I’ve found every time I’ve launched something is that it is a lot of fun. It is great to have a project on the go that you’re working towards and the anticipation in the lead up to a launch as well as finally putting it out there can be a lot of fun. It’s also a little frightening and scary – but overall it’s something I really enjoy doing!
I still have a lot to learn about launching products but am loving the process again.
PS: For more tips and strategies on launching eBooks don’t forget to check out How to Launch the *** out of your eBook as well as The Sticky eBook Formula (both books that have helped me through this process immensely).
