The digital age clearly has endless possibilities for do-it-yourselfers. One of the latest to be upgraded and greatly functional is self-publishing.
While digital publishing has been around for about a decade, it really took off in the last two years thanks to giants like Amazon.com getting into the action. With the advent of digital readers, and now a plethora of tablets, on which one can download and read anything, there is a great demand for e-book content. Getting an e-book published online is a great medical marketing tool that can help improve practice revenue.
The E-book as a Marketing Tool
Over the last year, many companies across a wide range of industries have started creating e-books - small, electronic books that offer valuable how-to information for free. Why? With today’s social networks the days of hiding your trade secrets are over. Creating marketing material that is free and of value to your readers will get you much farther than trying to entice people by dropping hints that have no real value. E-books have therefore become an effective marketing tool, particularly with email marketing.
A second way e-books can function as marketing tools is by self-publishing online, this will open your practice to an extraordinary level of exposure. As an example, if you choose to self-publish with Amazon.com’s online publishing business, your e-book will be available for both Amazon buyers and Kindle buyers - not too shabby in terms of widespread exposure.
So How Do I Do It?
As a practice manager who either wrote something or has a doctor who did, there are two approaches to take when self-publishing: assisted self-publishing and no-frills e-book digital publishing. Let’s first take a look at assisted self-publishing.
Assisted self-publishing tends to focus on hardcover and paperback books, but they also will publish electronically, typically through their own online bookstores. With assisted self-publishing, there can be some upfront fees, depending on which outlet you choose. Fees are assessed for editing packages, cover design, formatting for digital use, etc. Once the book is printed and available for sale, there is usually a royalty split once the publisher recovers the costs for manufacturing the book. This amount can either be a set amount, say $1000, or a per-book charge, somewhere around $2.
Suggested sites to review for assisted self-publishing would be Lulu, CreateSpace (Amazon), Hillcrest Media and AuthorHouse.
The no-frill e-book approach pertains strictly to electronic publishing. Sites such as Smashwords, iBookstore (Apple), Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Sony are some you may want to research. These sites will allow free upload and do payments via a royalty stream, but you need a completed, formatted book in order to do it. One thing to watch for when utilizing this approach is to carefully review how each site needs the manuscript formatted. You will also need to design a front and back cover. So there is some back-end work needed to go into your book project before uploading it for sale.
Does Anyone Know It’s There?
This is where the real challenge lies. Marketing for your e-book is another phase of the overall self-publishing project. This is where; once again, you want to review what you get with an assisted self-publishing company versus doing it yourself electronically. If your practice has a large email database, you’ve already got your first email marketing list. If your practice regularly uses social media (which it should be!) you’ve got a second level of outlets in which to advertise. You’ve also got your office space in which you can post notices and show actual hard copies of the book. If doing you own PR seems too much work, price out PR packages from some of the assisted self-publishing companies.
An e-book can be a great marketing tool for any business; if you think your practice could benefit from one, start doing some research today.
