When first-time authors think about publishing a book, their focus often centers on physical printed books. There is something alluring about seeing a pile of freshly printed books with your name on them. What too many authors don’t realize, is that publishing an ebook first is a much better idea. Here’s why.
There is very little risk.
Print publishing is expensive and risky. A short run of physical books can cost thousands of dollars. Ebook publishing, on the other hand, is relatively inexpensive. In fact, it is completely free for an author to self-publish on the most popular ebook platforms. You might have a few costs associated with writing and editing your book, or having a cover designed, but in general, the costs are much lower than print publishing.
You can test the market for your book.
Publishing your book as an ebook first allows you to test the market for your book before you spend a grundle of money having copies printed.
In addition, most authors get a lot of feedback from their first group of readers. With digital publishing, you can take that feedback and make updates to improve your book.
You can make more money!
Amazon sells more ebooks than print books, and they have since 2011! If you don’t have your book available in digital formats you are missing out on a huge number of potential buyers.
Even if you do have a print book, you should still have an ebook. Many readers prefer to buy digital books for their Kindle or mobile device. Some readers even buy digital copies of the physical books they already own because of the convenience.
You have more control over your ebook
In digital formats, your book can easily be updated and re-published. If you find a mistake or want to make a change, you can easily do so. Best of all, when you re-publish your ebook, everyone who already purchased your book will automatically receive the latest version!
How to format an ebook.
Turning your book into an ebook is not complicated, and there are several great free tools like Sigil and Calibre that make the process easy if you are willing to spend a little time and effort and do it yourself.