Marketing your ebook is an essential step in your success as an indie author. The best way to market and sell your ebook is through your own author website with secure ebook fulfillment.
Why Every Author Needs a Basic Website
Every author needs a basic website. This is an incontrovertible truth for authors. From the Stephen Kings of the world to first-time authors, the author website matters. Your author website is your main presence on the internet – or should be. Your author website builds your credibility as an author. It gives you a place to connect with your readers. And it offers you opportunities to market your ebook. Finally, it gives you a platform from which you can sell your ebooks and keep all the profits.
What Elements Should a Basic Author Website Have?
There are certain elements that every author website should contain. We cover this in our article, 10 Essential Components of an Author Website. All of those components – the author bio, sales page, blog, contact page, social media links, media page, subscription option, social proof, a free giveaway, and a way to purchase your books – are still completely necessary. In this article, we will focus specifically on how to establish secure ebook fulfillment through your website.
Why Do I Want to Sell eBooks on My Own Website?
The better question might be, why wouldn’t you want to offer secure ebook fulfillment from your own website? Not only does it allow you to feature your ebooks without any competing traffic, but you have total control over the price, the layout of the page, the level of security included on the book, and how it is presented. You’re not locked into stiff categories featured in a dropdown menu; you’re not required to fit within certain parameters for price. And, when the book is sold through your website, you’re not sharing 10-30% of the revenue with a fulfillment service.
Can I Sell on My Own Website and through Other Fulfillment Services?
Yes! And we encourage you to do so. One of the ways to be most successful with your ebook sales is to meet your customers where they are – and that means having your ebook listed in more places, not less. That’s the great thing about “going wide” with your ebook distribution; you’re not locked into a single fulfillment service – you are able to list your ebook on your own website, on Amazon, on Barnes & Noble, on Kobo, on Apple Books, and anywhere else you’d like to find readers.
How Much Does an Author Website Cost?
An author website is a serious investment. On average, you should expect to spend $150-250 for the domain name, hosting, and security, with annual or biannual renewal fees for the hosting and domain. You can save money if you choose a website host like Skystra that automatically includes the SLL certificate and doesn’t charge extra for it.
If you can build the website yourself, that may be the only cost. If you have to hire someone to build the website for you, it may cost an additional $1200-$2500 or more, depending on the complexity of your site. There are a number of themes and plugins available that make building a website a fairly intuitive process.
4 Ways to Sell More eBooks on Your Author Website
Your website design matters. People who discover your website through a search engine may arrive anywhere on your site. If it’s not perfectly clear how to buy your eBook, they may never bother. Make sure your website is easy to navigate, with clearly-marked tabs and links. If you have more than one eBook for sale, make it easy for visitors to see everything you have to offer and even easier to complete the purchase process.
- Make use of a third-party payment system, such as PayPal, where the purchase is secure; you’re not responsible for any of the credit card information and security required to protect it
- Use an ecommerce site like Shopify or Magento. EditionGuard has custom APIs for both Shopify and Magento as well as for WordPress, so that you can easily sell your eBooks.
- Include a statement on your site that informs customers that the checkout process is secure.
- Keep it simple. Use the same colors, design, logo, and graphics throughout your website and social media platforms. Design matters - in and out of the book.
Learn more about creating a clean web design to sell your eBook.
Be sure when creating your website that you offer links to your social media pages, to allow your readers and fans to connect with you.
Learn more about using social media to sell your eBooks.
How to Sell and Securely Fulfill eBooks on Your Website
Selling ebooks on your own website requires a few things from a technical standpoint:
- You should own your own domain and not be using a wordpress.com, wix.com, or squarespace.com free site.
- You should invest in secure hosting with an SSL certificate (this is what makes your website secure. It’s what adds the “s” in https://.” Without that, your website will not be searchable by Google, as they only show secure websites in their search results.
- A fulfillment service that provides adequate, flexible digital rights management for your needs as an author. For example, if you’re a professor, you may want extremely stringent rights management in place where you’re able to expire the content or restrict the download to one device. If you’re a romance author, you may simply want a watermark but gives your reader flexibility to access your ebooks on multiple devices.
Secure eBook Fulfillment with EditionGuard
Self-publishing online is easy with EditionGuard Storefront. You can securely sell and fulfill eBook orders with Storefront, a turnkey ecommerce solution with no percentage fees.
With our ecommerce solution, you'll get:
- Instant ebook product pages
- 10-minute instant setup
- Secure DRM product pages
- The ability to sell with no percentage fees
- Total control over your pricing and sales
- 2-day direct payouts - no more waiting 60-90 days to get your money
Read more about how fulfillment services work with EditionGuard or start your free trial today.
