1. Give it away.

I know this sounds like bad advice. After spending the time required to write and edit an ebook, you’re now being advised to give it away for free? Remember, this is a long-term process; keep the end goal in mind. You want as many customers as you can find. To accomplish this, you’ll need to develop a trusting relationship with your prospects before they will feel comfortable buying from you. The internet is a vast, potentially impersonal place. It’s full of many kinds of people. Some are trustworthy, some… not so much. Think about your own online buying habits. Have you ever bought something from a total stranger? If so, what made you trust them enough to enter your credit card number into the order form?

Offer the eBook for free so they can assess the value of your message. If they like what they read, they’ll be twice as likely to buy from you in the future. There’s no better sales pitch than a “try before you buy” proposition. You’re looking for lifetime buyers, not a once and done relationship. Another strategy is offering them a chapter of the eBook for free. Make sure it’s an enticing chapter that will make them want to read the rest of the book.

Use this free offer as an enticement to join your mailing list. Provide consistent value and information and you will have a customer forever. You can market to them afterward.

2. Offer the eBook to your competitors.

Just make sure there are ample links to your own website and promotional materials. You can help other webmasters get opt-ins for their mailing lists and as a by-product, you get your materials and links in front of more potential customers. Offering a hot topic eBook to hundreds of website owners will exponentially raise your number of future visitors.

3. Sell it on ClickBank.

Every day, the market is flooded with new instructional materials for consumers. Turn your new eBook into an instructional product that can be sold by anyone on the web for a commission. ClickBank tracks the orders, supplies the product, and sends you the money.

4. Sell it from your own site.

Maybe you see the long-term value of keeping your eBook product exclusive. If there’s enough excitement and buzz about it on the internet forums and blogs, people will flock to your site to buy it.

5. Turn it into a members-only course.

If you can create enough interest in your product, consider offering it as a paid membership course. Your paid members get access to a private site or you can email the chapters or portions in succession. This approach can be very successful.

6. Place your eBook on a free download site.

Again, this approach can be highly effective if the free eBook website gets a lot of traffic. Your eBook could become a viral sensation, changing hands at the speed of light. Just make sure your contact information is visible throughout the publication. If you use this approach, you might add your website address to each page as a header or footer.

7. Offer Resale Rights.

If your interest is long term traffic and customers, you could allow other webmasters and marketers to sell your eBook to their own customers. And yes… allow them to keep the money! This will give a potentially huge number of marketers an incentive to sell your ebook. You won’t be getting any money upfront, but the exposure could be phenomenal. Imagine hundreds or thousands of marketers putting your eBook in front of every customer on their mailing list. If you use this option, decide on a lowest price, and prohibit them from giving it away. This way, it will always retain a minimum value. Every time someone reads the ebook, your website address will be there on each page.

I’m wishing you success in all your online endeavors.