From Ebook To Print Textbook: Five Pitfalls
Has anyone else noticed a trend of books, both self-published and from commercial publishers, that were originally ebooks and accept not completely shaken the unlucky signs of their origin?
1.Because ebooks can be sold easily at 80-100 pages, however print books cannot, the textbook story gains length buttoned up appendices that booty up one-third of the sheet count. Sometimes the appendices are absolutely tangential to the leading topic, and other times they include golden advice that should accept been bigger integrated with the leading content. There’s again packing evident within the textbook, exceptionally a abundance of big illustrations, cartoons or Powerpoint slides that add small to the reader’s learning familiarity.
2.As ebooks are generally sold with a abundance of time-limited bonuses, these books again include bonuses printed in them &ndash bonuses that accept already expired when the textbook was purchased! This aloof happened to me with a hardcover 2007 textbook from John Wiley purchased buttoned up Amazon.com - not from some aftermarket source. What were they thinking?!
3.Ebooks, both free of charge and for-fee, generally service as a aboriginal process in a marketing funnel, with a disproportionate stress on moving the reader into the abutting, higher-priced offering, such as a boot camp or seminar. I’ve glance at two hardcover books recently that accept also prominent and also pushy a pitch for the author’s too expensive seminar. A textbook should be a self-contained advice unit, with other offerings mentioned however not with a dense sell. All promos should be placed after the leading content, not within the chapters.
4.It’s general to actualize and sell or distribute an ebook anthology by asking contributors to mail something in on a loosely defined topic and accepting all the contributions, with wildly uneven affection and relevance to one another. Provided it’s got a salable name, bodies will acquire this sort of object as a print textbook again, however reviews will be so-so at top, and the textbook is destined for a fast afterlife.
5.Above all, laziness abounds. Because most ebooks accept a short shelf activity, there’s small idea accustomed to manufacture the text substantive enough to resist the evolution of the marketplace for a year or two. Bodies who acquire books for their personal lib don’t desire something that will accomplish small idea when they pull a book down from their shelf in three years’ age.
Bodies can be fooled once, however textbook lovers won’t acquire that author’s “books” again when it’s actually an ebook in the trappings of a textbook &ndash without a book’s soul. Additionally, one of the ample benefits for an author of publishing in print is getting books into libraries. Librarians don’t usually buy books with the above weaknesses.
Desire to turn an ebook into a print textbook that fully works in its fresh format? Accord it depth, adapt it able-bodied, employ affection ascendancy provided coordinating multiple contributions, accomplish it good and important for age to come, and accumulate self-promotion low-key. Then you’ll accept readers eagerly awaiting your abutting textbook &ndash and the abutting and the abutting &ndash to add to their personal libraries.