Six Robust Strategies To Make E-Books Sales Successful

There are many players in India trying to get into the space of e-books sales and the scenario also seems to be conducive. Country already has a population of more than 1.2 billion and maximum number of people falls between the age group of 18-45. Not only that, country has always been at top edge of technology advancement. Now-a-days, we have wide range of smartphones and tablets available in the price range of Rs.3500/- to Rs.45,000/- and the total number of available devices are huge; in scores of millions. According to some survey, India is showing good appetite for e-books and digital content.  So, everything makes a perfect business sense. But it is easier said than done for new entrants. They should incorporate following six strategies to make their business successful:      

1. Free Apps sucks battery; have a dedicated e-book reader as well: Most of the smartphones and tablets in the country run on Android OS, which is open source and has millions of free apps. When something is made to make money and money is not made by selling it, then there will certainly be other revenue generation mode and i.e., advertisement. Phones which are running on Android OS, connected with GPRS, and serves ads, will suck battery quickly. Moreover, the apps installed on the devices also play a major role in making the battery dry quickly. Research from Microsoft and Purdue University, reported by ZDNet, looked at five of the most popular Android apps: Angry Birds, The New York Times reader, MapQuest, Free Chess and the Android browser. Using a custom-made app for the study called EProf, they tested the battery drain of each app on an HTC Passion running Android 2.3 “Gingerbread.” EProf is capable of not only detecting how much power the app was using, but also the energy demands of specific app activities. It turns out activities related to serving the user ads consume the most power. Of the total power consumed by Angry Birds, for example, a full 45% of it used to track ad-related user data (such as location). For Free Chess, the apps consumes between 65-75% on serving ads, uploading user info and tracking. So, when any device, which is supposed to be an e-book reader and is a smartphone or tablet, doing other work as well, battery life will be big question, impacting the reading experience. So, along with making e-book available on smartphones and tablets, dedicated e-book reader like ‘kindle’ is also necessary. It is like having multi-channel sales strategy for e-books and digital content in place.

2. Increase the width and depth of your assortment: Lot of people go to book store with specific book in mind unless and until it is the course material for classroom. I am an avid book reader but I don’t go to book store with any specific book in my mind. I just go there, roam around, read the preview then and there and buy the book and I have seen many people doing like this. So, good width and depth of assortment will make the consumers make the purchase decision.

Coming back to the readers, who need to buy the book for their academic purpose, for them, tie-up with research institutes and publishers specialising in this segment for sourcing contents, journals etc. will bring in dedicated readers.

3. Google has made people used to get the content ‘free’; don’t offer your books for free to make people expect ‘free’: People are passionate about Web; there is no doubt about that. I am simply amazed at opportunity it provides to explore the layers of this earth to limits of universe. It gives us the power to collaborate, concur and co-create a whole new and meaningful realm of life. Many may disagree with me, but hasn’t it made the power gets distributed and reach to the larger audience, making it more positive, meaningful, constructive and even more big? It has made information collection and distribution very easy and more importantly ‘free’. So, when most of the content is free, then making people buy it will be a challenging task.

Strategy should be to showcase the assortment of books, clean and best user experience, but there should be price tag for every book on the shelf. Don’t make people expect free content to get used to reading books. They are already habituated to getting free content courtesy Google and people like us.   

4. Tie-Up with the institutions, which houses active users: Student community is active user of books, whether it is digital or physical. So, tying up with schools and colleges for selling academic content will automatically lead an e-book seller to where market is. Otherwise, they will end up waiting for the consumers to reach out to them. And it is well known that in this age of ‘free’ content availability, waiting for consumers to find our one e-book seller will be humongous task.

5. Prepare an App marketing plan: This tiny little icon on any smartphone or tablet and its continuous use can make any e-book seller happy beyond limit. But they should have marketing plan for this app in place, because this is something where every book selling and reading activity takes place. It is well known fact that mobile and social gaming is the most popular segment of mobile apps. Games, music, themes, wallpapers, news etc. corners more than ninety percent of mobile apps. So, an e-book seller needs to have app marketing strategy in place for ensuring download of app first.

6. Integrated marketing plan for e-books and app: App is altogether different thing than e-book but both complement each other to make e-book sales successful. Further, an user needs to be updated regularly with new arrivals. Apps will also undergo numerous upgradation to making user experience better. So, there has to be an integrated marketing plan for e-books business as whole, which will include e-books, e-magazines etc. and app.