Julie Broad (founder of Book Launchers) explains which formats nonfiction authors should publish in. She advises ideally releasing ebook, print (softcover) and audiobook — with hardcover added for high-end positioning — but stresses the decision depends on budget, audience and goals. Key points: nonfiction still sells largely in print (clients often see majorities of sales in print), audiobooks can expand reach but are costly and have high quality expectations, formats can be added post-launch but that may risk losing immediate sales, and choosing formats should align with marketing and bestseller strategies.
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Ebook, hardcover, soft cover audiobooks. It's like lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. What is the right format for you when you're self publishing a nonfiction book? If you're wondering that, stick around, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad author and founder of a fabulous self publishing services company called Book Launchers where we help you write, publish and sell a business and brand boosting nonfiction book. Today's video is in response to Response to one of my fabulous YouTube besties questions, Latonya asked what format is best for your book? Ebook, paperback, audio or hardcover? And what should you start with? You're gonna love my answer. It depends. It depends on what is your budget, who is your audience, and what are your goals. Ideally, you're doing an ebook, a print and an audiobook. As a nonfiction author, you're missing out on readers if you don't do all three. So if you have some money to budget to this and reaching the widest possible audience is important to you, then do all three. And if you want to do high end consulting, high ticket speaking engagements, or you expect to do a lot of media, you may also want to do a hardcover. So in that case, four formats. But to me the absolute minimum is an ebook and a soft cover book. Nonfiction still sells largely in print. Our clients will often see as much as 90% of their sales in print. A few times when we've checked post launch stats, we'll see the split around 70% print and 30% E version. But people want print books for nonfiction still. So if you're writing a nonfiction book, you must have a print book. There are other reasons too, and I talked about many of them in this video right here. Are print books dead? You should watch this one. We did some funny stuff. I tried reviving a book. I mean try signing an ebook. It's lame and there's value in that printed book that's never matched by the E version. Print books make you feel like a real author. There's a lot of reasons to do print books. Audio is a bigger question and it's really hard to answer for everyone. Generally. The truth is audiobooks are expensive to produce and you can do audiobooks on a budget. But Audible may reject your book and listeners could give you bad reviews because the quality expectations are high. So if you do an audiobook, it has to be part of a bigger plan. If you're a podcaster or a speaker, do an audiobook. If your market is under 40 or people who have long commutes, I highly recommend you do an audiobook. And frankly it's a good way to stand out in a less competitive book market. But if you're on a budget, an ebook and a soft cover book will do to begin with. And adding hardcover isn't that expensive because really the big difference is now you just need to do another cover design and a little bit different interior. So maybe another 500 bucks will get you there. But it's totally up to you. There are other strategies you might consider when making this decision, like if you want to make the hardcover bestseller list versus the paperback. So then you might only release the hardcover at first to drive all sales there. Or if your dollar per book sold is most important to you, the money you're making you you might focus on ebook sales, but really most nonfiction authors want exposure, credibility, leads and business growth. And that happens when the most possible people read your book or at least see it, trust it and know about it. And that's going to happen when it's available in the most formats possible and the format your reader expects to get from you. One thing I will mention is that you can add formats post launch. All formats don't have to be available when you launch. And there are merits to that from an Amazon bestseller flagging perspective because each format has its own ISBN and if you want to hit bestseller lists, it's based on ISBN, not the title. But know that your marketing efforts are the strongest around your launch. And if someone finds out about your book, goes to buy it in their desired format or from their desired platform and it's not there when they go, you may lose that sale forever. So it's a risk. You have to decide what's most important because a lot of times they won't check back later and they'll forget. So there's a lot to consider. What is going to be your approach? Share it in the comments below. And when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet book launcher swag like every once in a while this noboringbooks mug no shirt and mug like this. 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