“I won’t do print books. Everyone’s just buying the e-book versions anyway, right?”
I was chatting with a potential author client. He was trying to save money on book publishing. Unaware that there are little cost savings, he figured it was cheaper to only do an e-book version of his book. He also figured nobody would buy the print book.
In some fiction genres, you can get away with only doing a digital version of your book. When it comes to non-fiction print books are a must.
Here’s Seven Reasons Why Print Isn’t Dead and You Need Multiple Versions:
Number One: Marketing.
Your print book is the best marketing material you’ll ever create.
Whether you’re selling your services as a speaker, selling a product, or offer some other service, your book should be the most polished version of your message. It should look amazing. It should explain who you are and why they need you. And, most importantly, it should be so amazing that it lives for a really long time.
Number Two: Print Book Longevity
People don’t throw good books out. They’ll toss out your business cards before you leave the room. You’re brochure hits the bin before it’s read.
But, your book sits on someone’s desk, shelf, or coffee table for months. It will rarely be thrown out. It might be given away, but that’s kind of amazing because now somebody is going to learn about you or your product or your service that didn’t know about it before.
Number Three: A physical book has value
If you speak, you can sell copies to the event manager to give to everyone in the room or you can sell them at the back of the room. They may even promote your book as a value-add. Used smartly, a book can be used as currency. Make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn more about how to do just that!
Number Four: You can use it for a thank-you gifts and client gifts
PDFs get forgotten and they get lost. A book is a tangible item and, again, it has value. Even if it only cost you six dollars to print, it still has more value than a digital version.
Number five: Readers still want print books.
According to Author Earnings 2016 sales report, 76 percent of non-fiction book sales are in print. 24 percent to audio and e-book. Non-fiction book-buyers want that printed version.
Number Six: You can’t sign a digital book
Sure, there are services like authorgraph where you can request a signed digital copy of your book, but it’s just not the same for the author or the book holder.
Number seven: Try taking pictures with the Kindle-only version of a book
That’s gonna be awkward. Digital is still important. Links are live. You can send people to view your YouTube video, link to your website, and add resources that aren’t suitable for the print version, so there are great reasons to do a digital version of your book. It’s also pretty cool what you can do from a marketing perspective with an e-book, especially with Whispersync, which will connect your audiobook to your e-book, allowing someone to seamlessly switch from your e-book to your audio book.
That’s a pretty cool feature that can’t do with print books. And, audio is where the real growth is. Audiobooks are blowing up and if you’re a non-fiction author creating credibility, trying to build that know, like, and trust kind of feeling with your readers, there’s nothing better than getting your voice in someone’s head through audio.
Bottom line, digital is wonderful, but print books are still alive and well, especially in non-fiction.