5 Ways To Use Smashwords Coupons To Market Your Book

I just recently started using coupons from Smashwords to help market my books. I started to see the potential for using these coupons from a blog post written by Dean Wesley Smith called Think Like A Publisher #11... Electronic Sales to Bookstores. In it, he talked about creating coupon codes for your books on Smashwords that allow people to download a free copy of your book. You then have gift cards printed up with that code on the scratch off area on back of the card. Once you have the gift cards created, you can approach retailers who sell gift cards about adding your cards to their inventory. For a detailed summary on how this can work, please see Dean's post.

As I said, that helped me to see coupon marketing in a different light, one that goes beyond giving people a simple discount to but your book. For those who are not familiar with Smashwords coupon generator, here's how it works:

You can create coupons that discount your title between 1% and 100%. Once you choose your discount, you can set an expiration date for that coupon. The system will generate a code that you can then give out to people for their purchase of your book. At any time, you can go in a cancel any live coupons for your book. The Coupon Code manager will list all codes you have created for your books.

Here are some ideas of how to use the coupon code generator to help you market your books:

• Use Dean Wesley Smith's brilliant gift card idea- See opening paragraph of post.


• Give away free review copies of your book- If you are looking for more Amazon reviews when you launch a new book, you can offer a fixed number of books to people who agree to review the book for you. I am currently offering up to 20 free copies of my new novel, The Lottery Ticket, for people who want to review it. All you have to do is drop me a note via the contact form at the bottom of my blog requesting a free copy in return for a review.


• Limited Time Sales- If you want to run a sale on your book, you can print up a coupon code and send it out to you use your lists. This is a very convenient way to run sales during holidays and special events.


• Book Signing/Events marketing- Do you have a book signing or an event coming up? If so, you can create a certificate with a free download code printed on it. You can sell these e-book copies of your book right along with thee physical copies. In fact, you can even sign the certificate just as you would sign your book.


• "Thank-You" gifts for your guest bloggers- Do you have guest bloggers or people who enter into a joint venture with you? If so, a free gift of your book can be a warm thank-you for their contribution.

These are just a few ideas of how you can use Smashword's coupon generator as a fast and easy way to help you market your book. With a little more thought, I'm sure we can come up with a lot of new ideas.


  













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Tony Eldridge is the author of The Samson Effect, an action/adventure novel that Clive Cussler calls a "first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure." He is also the author of the Twitter marketing book, Conducting Effective Twitter Contests. His new novel, The Lottery Ticket, was just recently released on Kindle.