How to Determine If My Company Can Be Featured on Wikipedia?

Being a company with X employees, having a website, and being mentioned in a local media outlet (or even 200 times in national media) is not sufficient to have a Wikipedia page. Your page would be at risk of being deleted very quickly.

At best, a notice like this might be added:

This type of notice can harm your company’s image and authority as it questions its legitimacy to be on Wikipedia. You cannot remove this type of notice for several months, and your page may be subject to deletion during this time.

Worse, your company’s website address can be placed on a « blacklist » by Wikipedia contributors. This means that no one can add a link to your company on Wikipedia.

Finally, if your page is deleted, it will be very difficult to have it reinstated in the future, even if your notability has significantly increased. Pages that have been deleted once must go through a different process to be reinstated.

This is why, above all else, you need to verify if your company meets the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia.

Understanding Wikipedia’s Notability Criteria

Collaboratively created Wikipedia pages define the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia. There are general criteria, as well as specific criteria for companies (here), individuals, fictional works, associations, and more.

To be featured on Wikipedia, your company or brand must, at a minimum:

1. Have been featured in the press or other media with national reach on at least two occasions.
2. These media appearances must be at least two years apart.
3. They should not be advertorials or press releases.
4. Your company should not merely be mentioned in the article or media segment; it should be the central subject (this is a subtle distinction).
5. The article or radio/TV segment should be sufficiently long and developed. For example, an article with fewer than 500 words or a segment lasting only a few seconds is not considered significant.

Therefore, the size of the company, its revenue, or its age are not direct criteria to consider when determining whether it qualifies for inclusion on Wikipedia.

Now let’s see how to find these media mentions.

Competitor’s company on Wikipedia that doesn’t seem to meet these criteria

⚠️ Have you come across a competitor’s company on Wikipedia that doesn’t seem to meet these criteria? This can be explained in various ways:

1. The page was created a long time ago, at a time when there was less « surveillance » during the publication of a new page.
2. The page hasn’t been noticed by an experienced contributor yet, but it could be deleted at any time.

The existence of such a page is not an argument to justify your presence on Wikipedia.

Conducting a Notability Audit According to These Criteria

To compile your various media mentions, I recommend using several handy Google tools:

• Google News (for searching on the websites of major national, international, and local media outlets).
• Google Books (for searching in books published by publishing houses).
• Google Scholar (for searching in scientific articles and academic reports).

Visit these websites. Enter the name of your company, your brand, your major products, or even the most well-known personality associated with your company.

You should see articles that mention you.

The article date is indicated just below. Be sure to find mentions spaced at least 2 years apart.

If there aren’t enough occurrences, also search through:

• Google’s general search engine. If there are too many occurrences from certain sites, exclude searches on those sites by typing ‘-site:domainname.com’. For example, to exclude Doctissimo: ‘-site:doctissimo.fr’; Youtube/Dailymotion; Researchgate/ORCID (for scientific publications).

Google News is one of the best tools to determine if your company can be featured on Wikipedia.

Attention! Identifying these sources is the first step of the audit and is the easiest part. The real challenge is determining if they are sufficient according to Wikipedia’s criteria!

From experience, we are not good judges when it comes to our own company to assess whether it is eligible or not.

Here’s an example:

This person who contacted me (very friendly, by the way) is certain that their company (in this case, a media outlet) has sufficient notability for Wikipedia.

However, none of the information provided by this person guarantees it: having 1 million readers per month and many press mentions are not sufficient criteria!

It’s necessary to delve much more into the quality of the references and the history of the media’s mentions on Wikipedia to get a clearer idea of notability.

Improving Your Company’s Notability According to Wikipedia Criteria

Your company doesn’t have at least 2 media mentions published 2 years apart? You know what you need to do: obtain those 2 media mentions.

Here are some suggestions:

• Contact all local media outlets (regional press, online media, radio, TV) to propose interviews or coverage of your events.
• Specify an interesting angle that could engage their audience.
• Follow and interact with journalists on social media who might be interested in your industry.
• Send targeted press releases to certain local journalists or influencers.
• Attend major physical events in your industry where journalists will be present and introduce yourself to them.
• Get better known to the media, especially locally, in hopes of being featured on Wikipedia.

How to Properly Create a Wikipedia Page for My Company?

Your company meets the notability criteria for Wikipedia?

You can then start writing the Wikipedia page for your company without fear of it being deleted once published!

Create a Wikipedia’account

I recommend writing directly on Wikipedia. This will save you time by providing direct access to Wikipedia’s specific formatting tools. To do this:

1. Create an account on Wikipedia (free and quick) or use an existing account.
2. Log in to your account.
3. Go to the top right corner and click on the icon representing a silhouette of a person 👤.
4. In the dropdown that appears, click on Draft.

This is where you can create your Wikipedia company page according to Wikipedia criteria by clicking on Edit or Edit Source.

Draw Inspiration from Similar High-Quality Wikipedia Pages

What does the ideal Wikipedia page look like? Wikipedia actually highlights certain pages considered « ideal » or, at the very least, of very high quality.

These pages cover a wide range of sectors: scientific, industrial, digital, natural, artistic, and more.

I recommend finding one of these ideal pages that features a company similar to yours or at least within your industry.

You can use it as a template for the structure to follow, the type of illustrative images to include, and the content of the paragraphs.

You can find a list of all featured articles here. For example:

• William Anderson (RAAF officer);
• KCPQ (television station).

Create a Compliant Plan

A Wikipedia page is typically divided into three main sections:

1. Introduction Section: This contains a summary of the article without references. It may also include an infobox summarizing key information.
2. Developed Content Section: This section is organized into various sections and subsections.
3. End-of-Page Section: This contains references, external links, bibliography, and category affiliations for the page.

The plan below provides more detailed guidance. Use it as a reference while comparing it to the structure of a featured article.

Typically, here’s how I organize the « Developed Content » section for a company page:

• History: I outline the company’s inception and its various stages of development.
• Organization and Financial Performance: I provide numerical data about the company’s financial performance, its human resources, etc.
• Activities: I describe the core activities of the company and the industry it operates in.
• Brands, Products, or Services: If they are sufficiently well-known, I detail some of the brands, products, or services designed or offered by the company.

Gather as many sources targeting your company as possible

Every fact presented on the page should be supported by a source considered reliable. For instance, you cannot provide figures about your company that are not publicly accessible somewhere.

The same applies to more general information, such as your company’s activities or operations. Each sentence or paragraph should end with a reference.

To find good sources, please refer to the section of the article that explains how to find reliable sources according to Wikipedia about your company (mainly through Google News, Google Scholar, Google Books).

Do not cite your company’s website or your brand’s website as a source. This may be interpreted as self-promotion.

Write a text

Now that you have a template, a plan, and reliable sources, you can draft your company page, section by section. Here are four tips:

1. I recommend starting with a section rather than the introduction. The introduction is easier to write once you have completed everything else because it is a summary of the most relevant elements of the article.
2. Remember that every statement, every fact, every piece of data must be supported by a source, and you should mention this source systematically (by clicking on ‘Cite’). While you can occasionally source from documents or reports from the company (provided they are publicly accessible), this should not constitute the majority of your sources. Let’s say a maximum of 5 to 10%.
3. You cannot copy and paste texts from elsewhere on the web, but rather paraphrase or synthesize.
4. Keep a neutral, factual tone as much as possible. Avoid superlatives. For example:
   • Say
     
     ✅ ‘The company operates in 120 countries worldwide’ instead of
     
     ❌ ‘The company has experienced remarkable growth, to the point where it operates in 120 countries worldwide.’
   • Say
     
     ✅ ‘According to Le Monde, the company’s research has improved our understanding of the microbiome’ instead of
     
     ❌ ‘The company’s research has led to significant advancements in our understanding of the microbiome.’
5. Get to the point. For example, do not list all the products or services offered by your company or every step in your company’s history.

Properly Format the Text

A text on Wikipedia is quite different in its formatting from a blog or journalistic article.

It is said that you should ‘Wikify’ your text, which means formatting it according to Wikipedia’s guidelines.

Here are the key things to keep in mind during this step in creating your company page on Wikipedia:

1. Only one thing should be in bold: the name of your company, in the introduction of the page.
2. To create a title or subsection heading, do not use bold or font size tools; instead, select ‘Section heading,’ then ‘Subheading 1, 2, 3,’ etc., for each subsection.
3. Avoid bullet point lists in the body of the text or the introduction.
4. Do not use all capital letters.
5. Citations should not be in italics and should be enclosed in quotation marks like this: ‘and.’
6. External links (to web pages outside Wikipedia) should only be included in the ‘External links’ section at the end of the article or in references.
7. Do not forget to add Categories and Portals at the bottom of the page, for example, ‘Business Portal,’ ‘Category: Companies based in Paris,’ etc. Use templates for this or copy-paste from other Wikipedia company pages.

Follow the specific Wikipedia writing and formatting style: wikification.

Choose Images Wisely

A page enhanced with one or more relevant images is more appealing and will likely increase its credibility.

Here are the types of images that work well for a company page:

• Company logo
• Photo of a significant physical event (conference, trade show, etc.)
• Photo of the founder (if their notability is sufficient; for example, if they have a personal Wikipedia page)
• Photo of the headquarters or a major production site
• Photo of a famous product.

ℹ️ Images appearing on your company page should first be uploaded to Wikimedia. Enter keywords related to your company in the Wikimedia search engine to identify them.

Consider Adding Internal Links to Wikipedia

You should include some internal links from your Wikipedia company page to other Wikipedia pages when a word is relevant.

For example, if you are a company in the agri-food sector offering only non-animal origin products, you may likely link to Wikipedia pages such as:

• « Food industry, »
• « Meat substitute, »
• « Vegetarian. »

because you will probably mention these three concepts in the article.

⚠️ You are not required to include an internal link for every occurrence of the word in the article, as it may make the page too cumbersome.

Declare Your Conflict of Interest

You must be transparent and describe your connection to the company if you are adding the page yourself.

You can do this in one of the following three places:

1. on your user page,
2. on the discussion page of the articles where you are involved,
3. in the summary of the relevant modifications.

Here are some examples of the statements you should include:

• I contribute to Wikipedia as an employee of the company XXX;
• I work for XXX;
• My client is XXX, and I manage their communication.

What could happen if you don’t? You may receive a banner like this on your page for life:

You must explicitly mention the name of the company with which you have an affiliation.

How to publish your company page on Wikipedia?

In theory, you can certainly create a new page on Wikipedia even if you’ve never contributed to the encyclopedia before.

Unless you want to publish on Wikipedia in English, in which case, you need to have made at least 500 prior contributions to the encyclopedia by editing existing pages (that’s a lot)!

In any case, you will need to spend some time understanding the substance and structure of a Wikipedia article to avoid having your article deleted.

If this is your first publication on Wikipedia, it is more likely to be subject to scrutiny by both bots and humans compared to someone who has been contributing to the encyclopedia for a long time.

Moreover, if you only publish about your company or yourself, it may raise suspicions about your motivation to contribute to the encyclopedia: is it truly to enhance collective knowledge or solely to serve your own interests?

The latter option is not inherently wrong or punishable, as long as:

1. The created page adheres to the expected standards.
2. Most importantly, your company’s notability is sufficient to warrant inclusion on Wikipedia.

That’s why some individuals prefer to enlist the services of providers, freelancers (like me), or agencies to create their Wikipedia company page. However, it still requires that your company’s notability meets Wikipedia’s criteria.

Adding your company to Wikipedia without creating a new page?

Is the notability of your company currently insufficient to warrant the creation of a dedicated article?

This is a situation that often arises, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be mentioned on Wikipedia!

How? Here are several options that may apply to your company:

1. Look for a generic page related to your industry. For example, if you are a wine trader, explore articles in the « Wine trading » or « Wine industry » categories. Determine if it’s appropriate to either:
   • Add an external link to your company’s website in the « External links » section.
   • Insert one or more sentences mentioning your company within the content of the page.
2. Check if your company is already mentioned in an existing Wikipedia article. To do this:
   • go to Wikipedia and type your company’s name in the search bar at the top.
     
   • You may see your company’s name highlighted in bold in the excerpts of certain pages, if applicable.
   • Simply go to the relevant article and add relevant and sourced information about your company or create an external link to your website.

Of course, only do this if you provide:

• Genuine added value to the reader of the page who is not specifically seeking information about your company.
• Adherence to Wikipedia’s usual rules (1 statement = 1 source, wikified text, etc.).

It is possible to link from Wikipedia to your company’s website or mention your company on a page without necessarily creating a specific Wikipedia page for your company.

Keep in mind that while it is not formally prohibited, Wikipedia does not encourage the creation of pages about oneself or one’s own company (it is even discouraged), nor does it endorse the use of professional service providers for a fee.

While I fully understand these noble intentions, I see a significant gap between them and actual practices. This applies to all sectors: business, academic, political, governmental, historical, and more.

Being honest and transparent about your financial or ideological interests is the alternative I prefer.

What are the service providers for creating a Wikipedia company page?

Do you lack the internal resources to create your company’s Wikipedia page?

Or are you looking to maximize the chances of creating a high-quality, compliant, and impactful page?

You can hire a service provider specializing in Wikipedia page creation or editing.

Here are the different types of service providers that I am aware of:

1. Freelancers who are Wikipedia specialists and have also been voluntary contributors to the Wikipedia project for a long time (like myself).
2. Communication agencies (they often or sometimes subcontract to freelancers like me).

Deleted or rejected Wikipedia page: What are the alternatives?

When I conduct audits for companies looking to appear on Wikipedia, in 60% of cases, their notability is insufficient to hope to be featured on the encyclopedia.

I then suggest PR-related advice to improve their chances of appearing on Wikipedia in the future.

Depending on their objectives, I also propose immediate inclusion on Wikipedia-like sites.

Here are the questions to ask before deciding to use these sites: What are your top priorities, and what initially motivated you to want to be on Wikipedia?

• To obtain backlinks to improve your website’s SEO?
• To enhance the visibility of your brand/service?
• To boost the credibility of your brand/service?
• To have a presentation of your company appear on a site other than your own when someone searches your company name on Google?
• To control the information present on your Wikipedia page?
• Personal satisfaction and accomplishment?

Depending on the importance assigned to these objectives, appearing on a Wikipedia-like site may or may not be relevant.

Here are the sites that can host company pages that have been rejected or deleted from Wikipedia, with less stringent criteria:

• Wikitia
• EverybodyWiki
• WikiMondePlus
• Wikilibéral, and other specific wikis.

And my somewhat more detailed opinion:

Site	Recommended	Review	DA
Wikitia	Never	The site is not collaborative; you have no control over what is said about you (even less than Wikipedia). You must pay for page creation (several thousand dollars) and for each potential update, with no guarantee that your changes will be accepted.	58
EverybodyWiki	Sometimes	Anyone can create a page on anything, without eligibility criteria.	51
WikiMondePlus	Not recommended because eligibility criteria are as stringent as Wikipedia.	Articles on WikiMondePlus are automatically indexed in WikiMonde, along with other Wikipedia articles (but not on Wikipedia itself). However, please note that WikiMonde has tightened its eligibility criteria and aligned them with Wikipedia standards!	49
WikiLibéral and other specific wikis	Sometimes	There are many other sites operating on a collaborative principle similar to Wikipedia but on more specific topics. Often created and developed by associations. WikiLibéral is one example among many: you will need to find the most relevant one in your case. For instance, WikiLibéral was created to address common misconceptions about liberalism.	Variable
IQ.Wiki (formerly everipedia.org)	Sometimes	Focused on actors and actresses in the crypto / WEB3 / blockchain world.	49

You must carefully weigh the pros and cons in your specific case of whether to appear on one of these sites and choose the most relevant option. This is part of my service when conducting Wikipedia audits.

They are considering the idea of creating a Wikitia page.

In their case, after auditing their digital presence and objectives, the recommendation is no for Wikitia but yes for EverybodyWiki.

Summary: 4 Mistakes When Creating a Company Page on Wikipedia

You’ve reached the end of this article designed to assist you in creating your Wikipedia page.

Below, I summarize the most common mistakes I’ve observed when a company attempts to create its Wikipedia page internally.

Overestimating Notability

This is by far the most common misjudgment.

It’s, I believe, difficult to be perfectly objective when assessing the notability of your own company, especially if you are unfamiliar with how Wikipedia operates and its specific notability criteria!

👉 Remember this: If your company is not the central subject of at least two articles published in the press or on TV/radio broadcasts, with a minimum of a two-year gap between them, your company has very little chance of having its own Wikipedia page published and sustained.

But there are alternatives to featuring your company on Wikipedia even without creating a dedicated page.

Failing to Comply with the Rule: 1 Statement = 1 Source

Sometimes, you come across articles consisting of large blocks of text without any sources.

Such articles are very likely to either be deleted or adorned with a top-of-page banner stating, « This article does not cite its sources sufficiently. »

To avoid this, every assertion (often, every sentence) must be supported by a quality source, cited at the end of the article.

Forgetting to Create Internal Links to Other Encyclopedia Pages

A Wikipedia page should be linked to other similar Wikipedia pages so that readers can explore the subject more thoroughly or find additional information on potentially complex concepts.

When you mention a concept, a person, or a company that:

• Already has a specific Wikipedia page.
• Is directly related to your company’s subject,

You must create a link from the word in your article to this other Wikipedia page.

If the word appears multiple times on the page, there’s no need to create a link every time, as it may become cumbersome.

Maintain a Neutral Tone

We often tend to use superlatives when writing informative text, especially when the subject matter is close to our hearts.

When writing about our own company, we may unconsciously present things in a less objective manner than an impartial observer would.

However, the goal of a Wikipedia page is to describe things as closely as possible to how they are, without value judgments, and without favoring one viewpoint over another. This can be frustrating at times!

If you’re writing your own page, it’s ideal to have it reviewed by someone with fewer emotional or economic ties to your company.

Ask them to remove any overly subjective expressions and ensure the content is sufficiently factual.

If you don’t take enough precautions in this regard, you may end up with banners like these at the top of your page:

Remember these common pitfalls to enhance the chances of your company’s Wikipedia page being accepted and maintained successfully.

Conclusion: Creating Your Wikipedia Company Page

This is everything I wanted to share with those of you who want to create a Wikipedia page for your company.

I hope this article has provided you with practical and actionable advice for your business.

Do you have any comments or questions? Your comments are welcome 🙂 !

Some companies I’ve worked with on Wikipedia include NAOS, TK Elevator, Mersen.

Why I Decided to Create and Sell Ebooks?

I, like many people, had the idea of writing a book in my head for a long time. I can’t even count how many Word files I saved with book outlines!

However, there was always one thing holding me back: I only wanted to write them if I was reasonably sure they would be read someday! And by a sufficiently large number of people considering the time invested and the value I thought I could provide.

I’m sure, like you, I’ve come across content like this:

The youtuber’s promise: write AND sell an ebook in 1 week…😊

If you’re still reading my article, you probably already understand that I’m not going to make promises like that.

I have some friends who have written books (often of very high quality). Mostly through publishing companies (some of them well-known), and some through self-publishing.

They dedicated months to it. With real expertise.

And often, their sales were very low (when they got feedback from the publishers on this…!).

So, I was quite aware that selling an ebook required a lot of work beyond just writing.

When is the Right Time to Write My First Ebook?

Three years after devoting several hours a week to my main website, the one you’re on now (Fonto Media), I felt (and it was confirmed by statistics) that I had reached a milestone.

I had created a lot of free content that was appreciated:

• Traffic exceeding 100,000 views per month (now my PV are more than 260k/month)
• Relatively high engagement rate (comments, clicks on links, average time spent on pages often over 10 minutes)
• Over 1,000 subscribers to my newsletter (which I had only started two months ago)

I had identified specific needs of a part of my audience that I could address with a certain level of expertise on the subject and legitimacy.

So, I embarked on the wonderful adventure of creating ebooks (only using Canva). Then, I put them online to be sold over the internet (via Payhip).

This was with a medium to long-term goal: to partially make a living from the production of informational and high-quality content in written format. Selling ebooks is one of the means I chose to achieve this goal.

In this article, I will mainly focus on selling informational ebooks.

Publishing Companies, Self-Publishing, or Simple Online Ebook?

I also thought about whether I wanted to:

1. Write and publish through an « official » publishing company. I had already done this collectively in 2019 for the collective writing with a few friends of the book « RIC, the Citizens’ Initiative Referendum Explained to All » (available on Amazon). I was in charge of finding a publisher.
2. Go through self-publishing, still giving my book an ISBN (a unique number that allows a book to be classified; but which doesn’t bring anything if you don’t follow up with extensive administrative and communication efforts to get the book well referenced in their catalogs).
3. Or make a minimal ebook in « pdf » or epub format, without an ISBN number.

Without much hesitation, I chose the last option. It offered the most freedom, flexibility, and potential remuneration margin behind it.

I indeed intended to modify/improve the ebooks based on the feedback I received, which I have already done several times in 6 months. This wouldn’t have been possible with self-publishing or official publishing.

What is the main thing to consider before selling an ebook online?

In my opinion, there is one thing you must think about and invest a lot of energy into before selling your ebook, even before writing it. That is your action plan for selling it and the evidence to evaluate if that plan is viable or not.

Too many entrepreneurs or writers ponder the visibility and interest in their digital book after they’ve written it. Some even realize, a few months after putting it up for sale, that they haven’t made any or very few sales.

This isn’t a problem if you’re writing your ebook primarily for yourself, and selling or having it read is secondary. However, I believe only a minority of people fall into this category.

If one of your main goals is to have your ebook read or purchased, then you must dedicate at least as much energy to thinking about how it will become known as you did to write it. I know it’s frustrating, but it’s a pragmatic observation!

1- The topic of your ebook: What need does it address?

Whether you’ve already written your ebook or it’s just a project, think about at least two things to better identify the need it addresses. Why is this important? Because it will provide you with arguments to highlight its relevance and explain why you believe it can be a source of information, entertainment, or emotion.

You’ll be better at presenting and valuing your ebook by identifying your targeted audience and what is important for this audience!

Here are the two things to consider for a better understanding of the need it addresses.

Who is your ebook intended for? Your target audience.

Is your ebook intended for the general public or professionals? If it’s for professionals, which sector are they in?

Is it for parents, elderly individuals, women, men, or people who don’t identify with a gender?

For example, I have four ebooks (here) that are solely for self-employed physiotherapists in France (so, professionals). I have many ebooks that are solely for patients who have recently been injured or operated on, or who want to stay fit, in English (here), French and German. My last ebook (here) is specifically for people with hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating).

What does your target audience value?

What is important to your target audience? What would make them happy, provide them with emotion, entertainment, or reusable information? And most importantly, how does your ebook really address these concerns enough for this audience to be willing to pay?

I’m not saying that answering these questions is easy; I’m only saying that it’s essential if you want to maximize the chances of success for your project!

Two other examples:

This American dietitian (from the blog « The Geriatric Dietitian« ) sells ebooks on her website targeting specifically elderly people who struggle with gaining weight. She regularly publishes the number of ebooks she sells (a few dozen per month).

Another example, this time of an ebook that doesn’t offer informational content but instead fiction. The startup that created it managed to raise over $12,800 through a crowdfunding campaign to finance the launch of their ebook.

The target audience was dyslexic children (and their families: parents and professionals).

2 – What Legal Status to Use for Selling Your Ebook?

Keep This Question on Hold There’s something where you can save some thinking time: consider under which legal status you will sell your ebook.

Keep this consideration for when you have sold at least 2 or 3 ebooks!

It’s not a big deal if you sell a book « under the table » for a few dollars (or more).

Don’t embark on the process of obtaining self-employed status or any other legal status before you’ve sold your first ebook!

3 – How to Determine the Price of Your Ebook?

Some people spend days and days agonizing over the best price to sell their ebook.

I understand that this can be a challenging step.

You don’t want to ruin everything because the price is too high. Conversely, you don’t want to risk underselling your ebook.

You may have already come across ebooks selling for tens of dollars. Question: have you seen many of them with solid evidence of long-term sales?

I think not.

If you’re realistic, no matter the subject of your ebook, its price should be, in my opinion, between $5 and $30.

Especially if you intend to keep it on sale for the long term (what’s called evergreen), without constantly running promotions and launches to remind people of its existence.

You will probably find some exceptions, of course. But these are exceptions, and I believe it’s essential to be realistic and not rely on these exceptions when thinking about your strategy.

What makes me say that this is a fair price for an ebook that finds buyers?

• Because it’s the price at which most books, whether digital or not, are sold.
• Because it’s the price range in which ebooks by successful American bloggers or writers (of quality) are sold online.

My ebooks are priced at €12 / $14 for individuals and €16.13 for professionals.

I recommend spending more time thinking about the strategy you will implement to promote your ebook rather than its best price!

8 Different Ways to Promote Your Ebook Online

In my opinion, you’ve reached the most crucial part of this article.

I genuinely hope to provide you with concrete ideas that you can apply to your own situation.

I will base this on:

• The things I did to promote my ebooks.
• But also the things I deliberately did not do, with my reasoning behind those choices.

I don’t claim that my method or approach is better than any other. It was simply the one that, in my opinion, was most suitable given my product, my audience, and what I enjoy doing.

It’s up to you to find your strategy! And really evaluate its plausibility before diving headfirst into writing your ebook… if it’s not already too late!

These tips are valid even if you are selling your ebook:

• On a platform like Amazon KDP or Fnac. ⚠️ It’s illusory to believe that your ebook will sell just by putting it online on these platforms, without any other specific promotional actions;
• By a publisher and not through self-publishing.

Sell your eBook with your personal network (word-of-mouth)?

Many authors I know operate in the following way:

1. They create their book more or less on their own, mentioning it a little (or not at all) to their close friends.
2. They put their ebook up for sale on the internet and send an email to their close friends to inform them of the publication, sometimes asking their friends to share the information.

It is entirely possible to make a few sales through this channel. However, I believe it is highly unlikely to sell and promote your ebook beyond your close circle in this way, even if the content is extremely relevant and interesting.

My experience: I didn’t even inform my personal contacts by email about the launch of my ebooks! They weren’t really my target audience (not even my kin therapist friends).

Sell your eBook on Social Media (Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok..)?

This is a variation of what I just described. Instead of sending an email to your close friends (or in addition), you share the launch of your ebook on your Facebook page or Instagram account (or LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, etc.).

If you are followed on social media by only childhood friends and a few acquaintances (let’s say, fewer than 500 people), there is a good chance you will achieve the same result as sending a simple email.

It is only if you have made the effort for several months (and probably, more like years) to build a specific audience on social media that you can hope to generate sales through social media.

Of course, this audience should be the one you target in your ebook. And don’t just settle for a single Facebook post; talk regularly about your ebooks in various formats without overwhelming your audience.

Or collect their emails and engage in email marketing (see below).

My experience: I am not very active on social media. I did not announce the existence of my ebooks on my personal Facebook, but only on the page I created for my community around hyperhidrosis. I made a simple post on LinkedIn to introduce my ebooks to physiotherapists and nothing on Twitter.

Sell your eBook with Crowdfunding Campaign?

Many platforms allow you to easily create a page to collect money to fund the creation of an ebook or test your idea. For example, KissKissBank, Patreon or Ulule.

There are always people creating campaigns for ebooks on these platforms. Some succeed, others fail. In 2023, 76% of the campaigns launched on Ulule reached their goal.

But again, this requires you to already have a minimal audience to redirect people to your page!

Moreover, Ulule validates (or not) the launch of your campaign by assessing whether your project is likely to succeed or not based on the promotion strategy you present to them.

Furthermore, launching such a campaign takes a lot of time:

• Writing
• Creating rewards
• Settings
• Creating imagery or even videos
• Promoting the campaign before and during
• Managing registered people

Therefore, a crowdfunding campaign for an ebook is a substantial amount of work that requires a lot of thought and energy! However, it can allow you to test your ebook project before writing it or completing its writing.

My experience: I created a crowdfunding campaign for my ebook on Ulule, but I never launched it. I made the bet that it wouldn’t work. I transformed it into a crowdfunding campaign for the launch of a podcast. And the campaign didn’t work! So I didn’t launch the podcast and instead focused my energy on my free articles and paid ebooks.

Sell your eBook using your website or newsletter traffic

Do you have a website and/or newsletter frequented by people who are part of your target audience? Bingo! In my opinion, this is the best long-term way to sell ebooks online.

Of course, you need:

• To have a continuous flow of traffic to your website!
• To prominently feature your ebook in various strategic locations so that people are aware of its existence.
• To regularly send useful newsletters that talk about your ebook (while continuing to provide value for your subscribers).

I will provide further insight into my ebook sales in relation to the traffic on my websites and my newsletter later in the article.

Some people also create what are called « sales funnels » to automatically sell ebooks:

1. They collect the emails of people who visit their website (by offering to join a newsletter, providing a quiz, a PDF file, a webinar, etc. This is known as a lead magnet).
2. They automatically program a sequence of emails to be sent to the person who just signed up (using an autoresponder, such as System.io, for example).
3. They offer the ebook in several emails or in their final email.

Personally, I find this a bit too much for selling a simple ebook for a few dollars.

My experience: Talking about my ebooks on my websites and occasionally in my newsletters is the main method I use to promote them. You will see that despite very high traffic on my website (over 260,000 visits per month in August 2023), my sales are relatively low (but exceed my goals). I haven’t set up automated email sequences (and don’t plan to).

Sell your eBook on Facebook Groups

There are countless Facebook groups on almost every topic. You can mention your ebook in Facebook groups (private or public) of people in your target audience.

However, a few precautions to take:

• Provide value first and foremost, for example, by regularly answering questions. Only occasionally mention your ebook.
• Be transparent and honest about your intentions.
• Don’t participate only to promote your ebook.
• Stop if you receive too many negative responses.

I highly doubt that this approach will generate more than a few occasional sales (at best). It also requires continuous activity in the groups, or everything stops.

My experience: I have never mentioned my ebooks for patients in Facebook groups. I think I mentioned one or two of my ebooks for physiotherapists on groups where I have been active for a long time and where I occasionally respond to questions because they were related to a question someone asked. However, I don’t rely on this method, and I am not very active in Facebook groups. Edit as of June 2023: I have even left the few French-speaking Facebook groups I was part of to focus on my website and newsletter.

Selling your ebook with affiliate program & marketing?

Some platforms (like System.io or Payhip) offer relatively easy implementation of affiliate marketing.

The concept:

• Other people can promote your ebook (affiliates).
• If someone buys an ebook through the link they share or the promo code they provide, they earn a commission (often around 10%).

Even if your ebook is excellent, there’s no guarantee that you’ll find people willing to promote it. Why do I say this?

On System.io, there are a lot of people (the majority) who have attempted to set up affiliate marketing and have had no sales. This information is readily accessible in the Marketplace on System.io.

In fact, you often need to implement a dedicated strategy (along with the other methods I mention in this article) to find affiliates.

My experience: I find the profit margin too small to implement affiliate marketing for my ebooks (priced at €16.13 for professionals and €12 or $14 for individuals, not including transaction fees and contributions to be deducted). So, I haven’t implemented it, and I don’t plan to do so in the future. Plus, I wouldn’t want people to use practices I disapprove of to promote my ebooks (assuming anyone wants to promote them!).

Sell your eBook with advertising

Some people are aware that they need to promote their ebook to sell it, but they don’t want to invest the time, energy, or money in creating a website or building an audience on social media. So, they sometimes turn to advertising.

They invest some tens (or even hundreds) of euros to display:

• Images and texts promoting their product.
• Or more often, they offer something for free in exchange for an email. Then, they send a series of emails with the goal of selling their ebook. They choose when these ads appear (when people search for specific keywords on Google, or based on demographic characteristics, etc.).

The uncertainty of the results is high, and I am quite skeptical about the profitability of using advertising to sell ebooks.

My experience: I have never used advertising on platforms like Facebook, Google, or others to promote my ebooks (or anything else, for that matter). It’s not something I want to pursue.

Sell your eBook with Email Marketing

The latest technique I’ve seen used to promote ebooks involves:

• Finding emails of people you don’t know (by collecting them using various tools on websites, buying email databases, etc.).
• Sending one or more emails to these people.
• Hoping that these people will buy your ebook.

This is what’s known as cold emailing. It’s called « cold » because the people receiving the emails are not familiar with you as an author or content producer.

Unlike warm emailing, which involves sending emails to individuals who have already been in contact with your website through newsletters.

I find it hard to believe that you can succeed in selling ebooks through cold emailing without using somewhat « aggressive » marketing techniques or making unrealistic promises. But maybe I’m wrong?!

My experience: I have never bought (or sold, for that matter!) email lists. So, I have never practiced this form of emailing. The people receiving my newsletters have signed up for them by downloading something from my website or by filling out a form to subscribe.

What is the Best Plateform for Selling an Ebook Online? My Review

Do you have a clear plan for how you’re going to promote your ebook to people who might be interested in it? If so, you can start thinking about where to make it available for purchase, either on a single platform or multiple platforms (except for the constraints of your limited time!).

3 places to sell ebook online

There are roughly three types of places to sell an ebook online:

1. Your own website, whether it’s built on WordPress or another platform. There are numerous plugins that facilitate this, such as Woocommerce, Shopify, or EasyDigitalDownloads for WordPress. See resources at the end of the article for more details.
2. A platform that allows you to sell ebooks and lists your ebook in its catalog. The most well-known of these is Amazon KDP, but there are also options like Google Play, Fnac, Kobo, Decitre, Cultura, eBay, and more. However, keep in mind that having your ebook listed in their catalog doesn’t guarantee sales unless you implement a specific strategy, as I discussed in the previous section.
3. A platform for selling ebooks (and other digital products) without listing them in a catalog. Options include Payhip, System.io, Gumroad, Sendowl, Podia, and others.

Here’s my comparison of the five options I considered for selling my ebooks. I ruled out other sites because they either required paying subscriptions upfront or involved too many steps, as per my assessment.

5 Best & Free eBook Selling Plateform: Review

Platform	Price	Advantages	Disadvantages	My Opinion
🥇 Payhip	Free, but 5% per ebook sold + Paypal/Stripe transaction fees	Quick and intuitive ebook setup Very instructive tutorials (in English). Extremely friendly and efficient email customer service (even with the free plan). +++ Handles taxes for different countries	English interface for setup (buyers see everything in French)	Best balance of simplicity, quality, and price if comfortable with English interface
System.io	Free and no per ebook fees (excluding Paypal/Stripe transaction fees)	Responsive email customer service	Lots of options and settings, which might take too much time (may not improve ebook sales)	Least expensive option, highly customizable, some learning curve, fully in French (or in English or other languages)
Podia	Free for one ebook, but 8% per ebook sold + Paypal/Stripe transaction fees. For multiple ebooks, $33/month (or $75/month) with no transaction fees (excluding Paypal/Stripe).	Relatively easy setup	Can become expensive if selling multiple ebooks before knowing if it works	Relatively intuitive, less cost-effective if few sales and planning to sell multiple ebooks
Via your website (e.g., WordPress)	Free (depends on the plugins used, excluding Paypal/Stripe transaction fees).	100% customizable No additional fees (except Paypal/Stripe commissions)	Significant time required to install the right plugins and configure them Some people may have less confidence in buying directly from your site	Suitable if your site receives a lot of traffic, has authority, and you’re willing to invest time in setup.
Amazon	30% or 70% per ebook sold	Slightly higher potential visibility (with effort)	Requires specific file formatting and is time-consuming. Significant royalty reduction	Interesting only in addition to direct sales if you have a website and some traffic to experiment with.

I’ve extensively explored some of the digital product selling platforms mentioned in my comparative table: Payhip, System.io, Podia, and WordPress.

In the end, I chose Payhip to sell my ebooks, and I absolutely do not regret that decision.

I opened two accounts with two different email addresses: one for ebooks sold to physiotherapists and patients, the other for people with hyperhidrosis. Edit as of July 2023: even others for my ebooks in English and German.

I don’t plan to put my ebooks on Amazon because it would take time to format them correctly, and the sales I manage to generate through my website are sufficient for me.

I prefer to spend time continuing to create free articles accessible to as many people as possible (which also indirectly helps promote my ebooks through my website).

You’ve been hesitating for hours, or even days, about the best platform? I suggest finding a way to make a quick decision (even if it means flipping a coin!) because, in my opinion, the choice of platform is not what will significantly impact your number of sales!

Moreover, you can always use another platform later, in addition to or instead of!

It’s better to spend time promoting your ebook! And that’s something no platform will do for you…

Payhip vs. System.io for selling eBooks

Several English speakers have asked me why I chose Payhip over System.io. I do indeed use System.io, but only for sending a monthly newsletter and collecting email addresses from people who visit my site and wish to subscribe.

But as I explained earlier, setting up System.io for selling ebooks takes much more time than Payhip. With Payhip, everything is pre-configured, and I like that. It allows me to focus more on my content 🙂.

5 Things to Consider for Your Ebook Sales Page

Of course, how you present your ebook (and its cover) matters. It’s reasonable to think that it can have an impact, potentially doubling (or more) the number of sales.

However, it’s better to invest time in this AFTER you’re sure you’ve defined a good strategy for promoting your ebook.

1/ Choose a Title that Intrigues Without Overdoing It

This step was quite challenging for me. I was aware that if I wanted to sell at least a few ebooks, I needed a title that would spark some interest.

But I didn’t want to overdo it either.

For example, I didn’t want to use expressions like:

• « 7 Secrets You’ve Never Read About… »
• « The Ultimate Guide to… »
• « What Science Says About… »

Here are the titles I ultimately chose for my ebooks for patients (all visuals, covers, and ebooks were created on Canva, directly online and for free):

I could have chosen more enticing titles. For example:

My Choice of Title	Existing Equivalent Ebook Titles Actually Sold on Amazon	Why I Think My Title Is a Good Compromise
Living with Hyperhidrosis: Testimonial Book Addressing Daily Life and Solutions for Excessive Sweating	The Sweating and Hyperhidrosis Cure: Stop Sweaty Armpits, Hands, Back, and Face	Hyperhidrosis is a chronic condition. Promising to end it permanently is untenable. I find this title « too much. »
Staying Fit as You Age!	Living Younger Longer: Extend Your Life by 20 Years. Science Reveals Everything… Foods, Supplements, Fountain of Youth Treatments, Secrets of Centenarians	Promising to extend your life by 20 years is extremely ambitious. Similarly, guaranteeing secrets (there are already plenty of resources on the subject) is too much for me as well—too bad if it costs me some sales!

Here’s how to choose a title in 5 steps that I followed:

1. Write down all your title and subtitle ideas, even the bad ones.
2. Look at examples of similar ebook titles in both French and English on Amazon.
3. Improve your titles based on this research.
4. Select the top 3 titles that align best with the message you want to convey.
5. Ask someone else for their opinion to make the final decision. Consult your audience if you already have one and think they might be interested. Personally, I didn’t ask my audience for the title choice, but I did for the title of the podcast I’m also launching through an online campaign.

Is it important for you not to « sell a dream »? Then ask yourself if you would be willing to tell everyone (your neighbors, friends, family, etc.) that it’s you who is selling this ebook and that you chose its title.

2/ Display a representative and enticing preview

Most platforms will allow you to display an excerpt from the ebook.

For example, in the form of photo galleries or downloadable excerpts.

I chose to present 3 pages from my ebooks (including the table of contents), which are each approximately 60 to 80 pages long. I also indicate the number of pages contained in the ebook so that people know exactly what to expect.

Here’s what it looks like on Payhip:

Potential buyers can download a free preview or view a few pages by clicking on the arrows next to the cover.

My advice: show a few pages from inside the ebook and indicate the total number of pages it contains.

3/ Specify who the ebook is intended for

It’s important for people to know if the ebook is intended for people in their situation or not, especially for informational content ebooks.

Normally, the title and cover already provide this information.

But you can provide a bit more detail in the body of the sales page.

Here’s an example from my ebooks:

Here, I specify that my ebook is intended for individuals who are concerned about the recovery after a broken upper limb.

4/ Offer a satisfaction guarantee (and stick to it)

I truly believe that my ebooks provide value, and I had them evaluated by others in my target audience before putting them online. Therefore, I offer a 14-day satisfaction guarantee:

Since then, I’ve had a few refunds, one for the ebooks for professionals and three or four for patients (out of a total of about 280 sales).

I recommend implementing this, provided you are truly committed to honoring refund requests!

Offering a satisfaction guarantee demonstrates your sincerity. If you receive too many refund requests, it’s likely that you’ll need to reconsider the content of the ebook.

5/List what your ebook will provide concretely to the reader (even for a novel)

Normally, the title of your ebook already indicates what the reader can gain from reading it, such as insights or emotions.

This applies to novels, testimonies, or short stories as well: the title will provide information about the emotions it will evoke and the atmosphere it will create.

I think it’s important to elaborate on this a bit more in the ebook’s presentation text.

Here’s how I did it for one of my ebooks: