When writing a children's picture book, most people agree that having the physical book in hand is an important part of the experience. But many children's book authors wonder whether or not it's worth it to have an ebook version too.
What most don't know is that there are major advantages of ebooks, which is exactly what we're going to cover in this blog post.
Advantage #1 - Having an ebook gets you in front of more readers
It’s been estimated that about 30% of all readers prefer ebooks to physical copies. While that is a smaller percentage, by not offering an ebook version of your book you’re actually turning yourself off to that potential market.
There are a number of reasons why a customer might prefer ebooks. Maybe they don’t have much space. Ebooks do tend to be cheaper so it could be a financial concern. Or they want to conserve paper and prefer to read digitally. No matter what the reason is, by having an ebook version of your children’s picture book, you’re suddenly opening yourself up to the full market of readers instead of a small portion.
Advantage #2 - Ebooks help your marketing efforts
If you are enrolled in KDP and use KDP Select (also known as Kindle Unlimted on the customer side), then you get 5 free promotion days every 3 months to use. That’s a great way to get more eyes on your book get in front of more people and gain a little bit more traction.
If you think about how expensive it would be to hand out physical books for free, you’d put yourself in a hole really quickly. So, offering an ebook version is a great way to provide a little preview. And if people like the ebook version of your picture book they’re highly likely to go and purchase a physical copy.
Advantage #3 - Ebooks prompt customers to leave a review
Having an ebook version will actually help boost your reviews because it’s going to actually ask people when they’re done reading the book to leave a review.
The con that goes with this is sometimes it's children who are reading the ebooks. Often they don’t realize that the star rating actually means something. They might think it’s a game or they give you a one-star because they think first place is the best. This is unlikely but has been known to happen.
Advantage #4 - Ebooks can increase your rankings and your credibility
The competition in ebook categories is significantly lower compared to physical book categories. In some categories, you only need to make one sale a day to hit the top 10 in that category. One ebook sale a day, that’s it! But be warned - you should only put your book in categories that fit your book. Doing otherwise will actually hinder your sales and growth. Plus, it's just dishonest.
Want to learn how to get your book into extra categories? Check out the video below:
The biggest downside to having an ebook is that they tend to sell significantly less than physical copies of children’s picture books. You’re probably not going to make a ton of money off of them but every little bit counts in increasing your sales, your visibility, and getting you in front of the right people.
Want to learn how to create an ebook file yourself for FREE? Click here to watch the tutorial.
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