5 SIGNS it may be time to PUBLISH a PRINT book from a Kindle version

Today is a Hit splits episode for Author Audience.

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

When is it the right time to publish a a print book from a Kindle version? Hi, my name is Shelley Hitz. I'm the best selling author of over 40 books and the list keeps growing. I am an author coach and the creator of authoraudienceacademy.com and I am passionate about helping you let the light of Christ shine through you through your gifts and abilities through publishing books, online marketing, growing a business and more. So welcome to this training. Today, this training is all about five signs it may be time to publish your Kindle book as a print book. I'm here in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We're getting ready apparently to have a huge snowstorm. So this should be interesting. When you publish a book, I often recommend publishing a Kindle book first. Why? Because it is so much easier. It's an easier process, it's less expensive and it just says simply get you used to the process of publishing, getting something out there, testing the market, see how it does, and then see if you want to invest in a print book. But what do you do then when you do want to publish a print book? Well, the first thing you want to look at is what are the sales for your Kindle book? Is it selling well? So that's the first sign you may want to publish it as a print book. It is selling well and we love sales, right? Woo hoo. So we love getting book sales. That's one of the biggest things that authors write me and ask me about, how can I sell more books? Well, one of the ways is if your Kindle book is selling well, if you then repurpose it into a print book, guess what? You're most likely going to increase the sales of that book because there's going to be people that want both versions. So that's the first sign. The second sign is customers are asking you for it. I have customers that will write me and as a matter of fact, just this week I had somebody email me and say, is your book marketing your book on Amazon available in print? Currently it's not. But if you're starting to get a lot of customers and a lot of people asking you, is this book available in print, guess what you should do? You should probably make it available in print. So that's sign number two that customers are asking for it.

So sign number three is any Issues have been worked out. Let me give you an example. If you publish a Kindle ebook and then you decide this title isn't really doing well and I want to change it, if you haven't assigned an ISBN to that Kindle ebook, which you don't need to because Kindle gives you an asin. So if you haven't assigned an ISBN to that specific Kindle book, you can change the title without any repercussions. So you can do some testing with your titles, you can work out any issues with, you know, your formatting, any final editing, all of those things. Because guess what? Once a book is in print, you can't update a print book that someone has bought. It's forever going to be that way. And so if you find errors, if you find edits, if you find things that you want, want to add or do later, or if you want to change the title of a print book, you actually have to retire it and get a new ISBN because that ISBN is tied to that title. So if you want to do some testing, if you want to work out the kinks, if you want to have a faster, like get it out and then let's work some things out, doing it first in Kindle is an option, but make sure you've worked out those kinks before you publish it in print. So sign number three is issue have been worked out. All right, so sign number four, it's time to publish a print version of your Kindle book. Is that you want to sell more books so you can use it in marketing. Because when you have a print book, guess what, it can be like a business card. People don't throw away. Do you ever throw away a print book? I don't. I can't get myself to throw away a print book. I may give it away, I may donate it, but I cannot throw a print book away. I just can't do it. And so a print book is really, really powerful in marketing because people will throw business cards away all the time in the trash. In the trash, in the trash. They may forget you, but if they have a book, they may put it on their shelf and they may see it over and over. They may put it on their coffee table and they'll see it over and over and over. And so you'll a greater opportunity to potentially get their attention. And so that is number four to use in marketing. Also, if you have a print version of your book, you can do a goodreads giveaway. Now, I did a complete workshop on how to market your book on Goodreads, it's in Author Audience Academy in the Take Action Workshop section. So if you're an Author Audience Academy member, go check that out if you have not been through that workshop yet. But one of the things I share in that workshop is you can actually do a giveaway. All you need to do is give away one print book. They don't do it with ebooks, it's with print books. So when you have a print book, you have more leverage. You can get more potential exposure on Goodreads and other platforms because you're able to use it in your marketing. You can also use it in mailings like when I am doing a mailing for potential speaking engagements and I'm sending things out to the people who book speakers, I'll include a copy of one of my books. So print books are powerful in marketing and you never know who's going to pass along that book, where it's going to end, how many people are going to read that book. If you have written a book that is Christian based and has a gospel message, you never know who is going to end up reading that book, who's going to pass it on. I have a book for teen girls and I've gotten emails before saying I passed this book along to this person or I got this book from this person and you never know who is going to end up with that book. So it's powerful for marketing but also to get your message to more people. So that is sign number four. You want to sell more books. So it's for marketing. So if you want to sell more books, if you want to have more opportunities to market your book to more people, guess what? Get a print version of your book. It's just a no brainer. Then sign number five that it's time. If you have a Kindle only version of your book, to get a print version is that you want a reason to have a relaunch or a special promotion. You're always, always, always 99.9% of the time going to sell more books. When you have a special promotion going, when you have a special reason to promote it. So having a new product like I just gave birth to a print version of my book, let's celebrate, let's have fun, let's make this a party, let's have a promotion. And if you buy the print version of my book during these three days, I'll also send you the PDF version or I'll also send you this extra bonus and it gives you a reason to mail your list. It gives you a reason to promote on social media. It gives you a reason to build buzz. It gives you a reason to get people excited about your book. How amazing is that?

Awesome. The fifth reason is to relaunch and build buzz. And guess what?

Many times when you do this, if you are offering them a reason to buy now, go back and listen to my podcast author. I have several episodes on book launches. But when you give them a bonus and a reason to buy now, during the launch of the print version of your book, you're going to make sales and you're going to be able to do it genuinely and authentically. So many of my followers, so many of the people that are in my tribe, what Shalene Johnson calls lifers, people who are my lifers, they don't like feeling spammy or self promotional or pushy with sales. But when you have a reason to be talking about your book, to be posting a picture, you can have a picture of you and your book. Look what just came, my print book. And it's genuine excitement. It's not pushy, it's genuine buzz. There's a genuine reason to share with people about your book. Guess what? That's marketing. And it is a great way to give new life to an old book, especially if it's Kindle version only. But you can also do that in other versions. You could do audiobook, you can do translations, you can do large print. You know, there's all kinds of things, spiral bound, all sorts of things. I teach all of those in authoraudienceacademy.com this month, actually, this Tuesday, April 19th at 11:00am Mountain Time, 1:00pm Eastern, I am doing a take action workshop for authoraudienceacademy.Com members. We are doing a Kindle to print challenge. Woohoo. Yes. I love it. You know why I love it? Because it gives you another product to reach more people with your message. Another way for you to not only reach more people but to get income from the work that you have done. Can you tell I'm a little passionate about this? I love this. And I surveyed my authoritudingsacademy.com members because I want to give you what you want and what you need. And overwhelmingly the response was we want this. We want this challenge. We're going to be doing it live. I actually have a book that I published as a Kindle book that I am going to walk you step by step through the process of using CreateSpace. I'm going to upload it live. I'm going to show you all the steps what you need to do. And we are going to do this together. So I'd love for you to join us. If you are an author, audience academy member, put it on your calendar. It's April 19, 1pm Eastern. Make sure you sign up in the members area so you get notifications. If you're not yet a member, join us. Because if you join before the workshop on April 19, I have a special special bonus for you. I'm going to give you the exact template I use for my print books, completely free of $57 value. So you can email me shelleyshelliehits.com and I will send you that bonus if you sign up between now and the workshop. So those are my five signs that you should publish a print book from a Kindle only version book. Let's recap. Sign number one is that it's selling well. Sign number two, customers are asking for it. Sign number three, all your issues have been worked out. You know you're not going to need to change the title. You know that you're not going to have to do a ton more editing or proofreading or you've caught all the mistakes, you've updated everything you need to update and it's good. Sign number four is because you want to sell more books. You want to use it in marketing because there is so much marketing power when you have a print book. And then sign number five is so that you have a reason to build buzz and to do a relaunch, a special promotion that you can offer special bonuses or a special prize or a package, or you can do a giveaway and you can build buzz on social media on your email list everywhere and get people talking about your book. How awesome is that? Love for you to join us in the Kindle to Print challenge this coming Tuesday. You can join us by joining authoraudienceacademy.com if you join before Tuesday, I have a special bonus for you and you can get that by emailing me@shelleyellehits.com after you sign up. I'm excited for this workshop. Actually, one of the reasons I'm really excited about it is because I need to finally get that book that I'm working on, that Kindle book I have into print. And so it's actually accountability for me too. And so it's a really, really great thing. If you're interested in self publishing and you haven't read my book, self publishing books 101 yet, make sure you download your free copy@shellyhits.com publishing and I get emails from many people that tell me just by getting my free training, just by downloading that free book, they've been able to publish their book. And that's what I give away for free. So if you have benefited from my free content, from everything that I share with you and teach you for free, just imagine what you'll get. In authoraudienceacademy.com I not only teach writing, I teach publishing. I teach marketing and growing a business. You, you have basically an all in one, all inclusive membership. Plus, I'm a coach that cares. I pray for all my members by name. I usually do it on Sundays, but this week we were traveling, we were in Massachusetts for a speaking engagement. And so I actually did it today. I went through and prayed for all. I think it's about 170 members by name. You know why I do that? Because I care. Because I care for you and I care for your success. I am in the Facebook group every day answering your questions. All right, so I'm gonna head off. You guys have a great rest of your day and go get your book in print. If you have a Kindle book and it's not in print yet, do it and let me know that you have taken action. My name is Shelley Hitz. I am so excited to be able to give these trainings to you for free and be able to meet with you live. If you haven't subscribed yet on Facebook, there is a way to subscribe. It's the pinned post right now on my page. But basically if you're on desktop, you just click the like button and then you click the drop down menu next to the like button if you're on your desktop or laptop. And then you click the little pencil that says notifications, scroll all the way to the bottom and click the box for live videos. That way you'll be notified when I go live on Facebook and you can be here to ask questions, to get help, to get coaching for free, to interact and have this community time. If you're on mobile, what you're going to do is click on the three little dots that say more and then you're going to turn on notifications. And when you do that, you're going to scroll down and click live videos and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelly's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.