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An author friend of mine came to me with a big question;

Have you discussed the publishing and marketing of ebooks in comparison to physical copies? For example, authors and shops sell exclusive editions.

Oh boy. I don’t think I know how to approach this question!

There are two parts here; publishing the two formats, and marketing the two formats. Each section has a slightly different approach.

Publishing and Production

Regardless of format, the text needs to be written, edited, and placed on the page – all processes I think I’ve covered before (and if not, I will be soon). But this is where physical production and digital production part ways.

Physical production will further lay the page and ensure that the PDF looks presentable and aligns with the brief. The cover is combined with the PDF and sent off to the printer for proof copies. Once the proofs have been validated, a full print run can commence, and then you have books!

Digital production moved from the page design software to a type of coding software specifically for e-publication. This software looks at the text and formats it – rather, it unformats it. The beauty of e-pubs is the function it gives to the reader to make their reading experience easier and more personalised according to their needs, e.g. larger font, sans serif over serif or cursive, even the colour of the page. Removing the formatting and replacing it with functions allows them to do that. Reformatting e-pubs also makes it easier for e-readers to differentiate between the titles and headings, and the body text. The whole text must be tagged and formatted to fit the e-pub specifications, which can take a considerable amount of time, especially if you’re like me and you struggle to get it right because you’ve not coded in 5 or so years. The document then needs to be uploaded to the distribution site (lets use Kindle for example) for validation and release and all that nonsense. Usually, the cover will be uploaded separately from the content as an additional file for some reason.

Marketing

Marketing is a beast; it takes time and resources to even establish a new project, let alone push past the comfort zone of an already established audience. Granted, the more projects you have, the easier it will be because that comfort zone audience will be larger than those with fewer projects – it’s a give and take kind of situation.

Marketing physical and digital products is mostly the same – the content is not changing, and therefore does not require a different audience. There may be alternative covers, especially for the different physical formats (hardcover and paperback), but overall, the marketing process should be the same. Usually physical and digital products will be published on the same day, and even be marketed in bundle posts, especially with hardcover releases which tend to be the first format published.

If I were to market physical and digital products separately, I would take a closer look at the audience who would get the most out of each format. Usually, this would come down to their lifestyle; whether that be that they travel via public transport and don’t want to carry a larger product around, or they have mobility issues and are unable to turn thin pages. Knowing how the audience uses the products will help you better understand where they look for those products and what kind of features attract them to a product. I don’t want to use the word ‘exploit’, but that’s essentially what it is; understanding a person’s behaviour and using it to maneuver them towards your product over someone else’s.

 

There’s undoubtedly more to it than this, but I’m not going to drown you with niche publishing knowledge all in one go! If you want to learn more, comment below and let me know what you want to hear more about.

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