Much of the information I provide here is from personal experience on writing my own first e-book and I wish to extend much credit to Michael Campbell, who in the early days, was a great encouragement to me with his Internet Marketing Secrets weekly newsletter.

If you missed either Part 1, An Introduction to the Mechanics of Writing a World Famous E-book or Part 2, Easy and Inexpensive Mechanics of Creating Your First E-book of this 3 Part series, please be sure to review these articles as well.

By Guest Writer John Alexander

Some people may have the image of a sales letter as one of those hyped up letters that you see around, usually with giant fonts all highlighted in yellow which comes across to most of us as “over the top” hype.

That is not what we are talking about here and not what we want.

We are talking about creating a page that does not push sales into the face of the customer, but simply and effectively communicates the value of your new E-book in a way to build genuine desire to want the product.

You’ve worked on making it the best it can be following the previous 2 articles and suggestions I’ve made. Now these are tips to help you market your new e-book.

1. Color

It’s best to stick with black text on white background and then try using a deep corporate blue behind the white. The color blue invokes feelings of trust and security.

See this example as a simple case study. It an e-book that Robin Nobles wrote called – Content Challenged No More. Open a new browser and visit http://www.Contentchallenged.com

2. Examine this case study page – element by element

Try working with a strong headline that gets your readers instantly flowing into the copy. Notice these first few words in our case study:

If you’ve ever had writers block, or been faced with a blank page, then here’s where to start.

The If/Then statement is a powerful way to nearly get the reader instantly flowing into the dialog. IF (whatever challenge you have) THEN (it leads to a solution which appeals to as wide of an audience as possible.) The second paragraph gives you a rather emotionally charged pace that literally anyone can relate to. We read…

“There are over 100 light bulb moments to shine your creative juice, brighter than ever before. You’ll never get stuck wondering what to write. You’ll explode with ideas and easily create content that people are just dying to read.”

3. Use a bulleted list of points to highlight your benefits

You must spell out the benefits that your product delivers in a list of bullet points, that are easy to absorb, but build the readers desire.

Never make the assumption that your reader will immediately grasp these benefits. They won’t unless you spell them out. Use at least 20 to 30 good solid benefits (or more as you think of them.)

4. Use plenty of white space – Make your communication very easy to read and absorb.

5. Write your sales copy for “voice” the same as a broadcaster writes their copy.

By that, I mean learn to write your copy so that it speaks to your audience, directly the same way a broadcaster writes their copy to be read “for voice.”

Far too many people get caught up in traditional pitching of their services, rather than communicating well with their readers in a human to human way. Write to communicate, not to try and dazzle your audience with 6 syllable words.

6. Use confidence builders throughout your sales copy

Offer testimonials which are still quite influential (if they are legitimate comments from your customers) and at least their name is provided. Your testimonials should be added directly to your sales letter in key points.

Be sure to set them apart from regular sales dialog. In the example of Robin Nobles e-book case study, notice that the testimonials are using a different font style (called Courier new) which replicates the look of a type written note.

Don’t forget to add in the credit card logos which are also confidence builders.

Although your PDF is not really a book, you can still create a cover graphic to add some color and 3D effect. Cover graphics should be fun and ideally you can have a graphic artist create one for you or you can create your own for free using this free 3D cover graphic creator called 3D Pack.

7. Have a good solid call to action at the end of the sales letter.

You can also add this in several places throughout the body in 2 or 3 spots. Make it easy to buy at any time they make a decision.

8. Proofread your sales letter

Be sure to proofread your sales copy. One easy tip is to read it out loud. Also try reading it in reverse order starting with the last sentence first and then the next sentence up until you read the entire letter.

This forces your mind to actually read what you have written, instead of reading what you think you wrote. Then reading it out loud, but forward also helps you establish the flow of the dialog.

9. You can set up an account as a Vendor at Clickbank.com.

Clickbank will give you a check list of things to do before activating your account.

One of the great things about creating a digital product is that is once it’s all created and launched it can go on to earn you good money 24 hours around the clock on auto pilot. Regardless of whatever other things you have on your agenda, some e-books sell well for many years. I wish you the
best of success as you go forward to work on your new e-book.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

John Alexander is Director of Search Engine Academy(Http://www.SearchEngineAcademy.com) with live community training centers located globally in North America, Asia and Australia. John also is author of the Free SEO Tip of the Day and teaches SEO Training online with his partner Robin Nobles.