To Ebook Or Not To Ebook
Publishing an ebook is a great way to make your work available to a whole new market of readers! You may be wondering if your book will only work as an ebook or if it can also be a print book. What type of books should or should not be an ebook? Except for a few niche genres, anything that can be a print book can be an ebook as well! All different genres and book types, from cookbooks to poetry, memoirs to illustrated children’s books, can all become ebooks accessible on multiple smart devices.
Advantages of an Ebook
There are no disadvantages to having your book in multiple formats. Having an ebook in addition to your print book is advantageous to both your discoverability and your profitability. Publishing in only print is like restricting your song to the radio. Though it’s a popular medium, you’re missing out on all of the exposure that Spotify, Apple Music, and others could bring you.
No matter what kind of book you’ve written, an ebook version can make your work that much more accessible to readers. In fact, according to a Pew Research Study, 3 in 10 Americans are reading ebooks along with print books. Having your book available in print and ebook formats naturally increases the chances of someone reading your book!
Top Selling Ebooks
Regardless of the genre, almost all books can benefit from having an ebook version. Some genres are proven to be consumed by readers in a digital format. In this case, fiction is king!
Children’s ebooks is a market that has seen steady growth, especially if the book incorporates an educational component. If your book is in one of these genres, it will work in your favor to have an ebook version available.
Who is Buying Ebooks?
According to the Pew Research Study mentioned previously, while print books continue to be more popular than ebooks in America, there has been a steady increase in ebook readership in the last few years. Across all ages, women are more inclined to read ebooks than men. Readers 18 to 29 years old significantly lead the way in reading ebooks. As a person’s level of education and income increases, so does their ebook consumption.
5 Tips for Creating an Effective Ebook
- Use an attractive cover, consistent formatting, and appropriate visuals to enhance the reading experience
- Choose a clean, legible font and use appropriate spacing and margins for comfortable reading across devices
- Include a table of contents, clickable links, and proper page numbering to help readers move through the ebook easily
- Ensure your ebook is searchable, allowing readers to find specific terms or topics quickly
- If your ebook format allows, include a progress bar or percentage indicator
Books That Should Not Convert to Ebooks
There are a few exceptions of books that aren’t great as ebooks. Books that include interactive content should not be converted to an ebook. For example:
- Coloring books
- Diaries or journals
- Books that incorporate crafting, such as gluing, cutting, or folding the pages
- Workbooks that require written responses or the solving of equations in order to move on
- Extremely technical content that requires reference manuals, materials, or study guides
- Some medical, scientific, language-learning, and legal books—essentially, the more encyclopedic the book, the less well-suited it is as an ebook