Someone recently asked me, “Is there a difference in writing style between eBooks and paper publications?” Yes, and it can be quite dramatic.

People buy eBooks for completely different reasons than they purchase paper books. Again, it comes down to knowing your audience and their needs.

Let me share with you the top three reasons that people have specifically stated or demonstrated to me about why they might choose an eBook over a paper book. All of these cases apply to only my own work with non-fiction.

1. They want the information right away. Like, yesterday. They search online first for the content, find a resource, like a blog that tells them things they like to hear, and then find out that the blog Author also has an eBook available for download.

2. They don’t have time to read that much. I’ve heard more than once that people have a perception of paper-bound books occasionally being too deeply explorative of topics. They just want the facts. They don’t want to know the backstory – it won’t change how they use the information or how they make decisions.

3. They just don’t want more “stuff” in their lives. An eBook on their phone, iPad or other digital device is more or less invisible. It doesn’t require storage and is always in their back pocket. They can make notes or send paragraphs to others via email or even Facebook.

So if we know all of these things about our reader, how can we imagine that they want to read an eBook?

- uncomplicated, unburdened writing
- plain language, not a lot of buzzwords
- straight-to-the-point explanations
- external references will work easily (like web links for more info or your bibliography)
- high-level exploration of the topic, unless it’s specifically stated that yours is an in-depth work
- written in a lighter, more entertaining style
- consider modularizing content into self-contained sections that make sense on their own, allowing readers to make choices about how they choose to read the content, perhaps just one mini-chapter at a time
- use clear headings and sub-headings
- use consistent organization, conventions, and glossaries that interlink to your main content
- be sure that your chapter headings and subheadings links work properly, allowing people to hop around to parts of the content clearly
- make sure that your sales copy clearly represents what readers will receive
- use standardized platforms and technologies with the widest appeal and compatibility (watch out for the use of Flash on Apple devices, for example)
- offer them follow up content that meshes with your first book or offering

In closing, let me offer you a single caution: don’t make assumptions that your eBook readers are young hipsters, and can understand euphemisms and slang. Lighter and more entertaining doesn’t mean using cultural references or inside jokes that may be missed by a 55+ crowd.

Is volume the name of the game when it comes to eBooks? I’m not convinced that it is.

In this post by Chris Brogan, he makes two extremely important points about pricing digital products.

1. People never truly know what your content is actually worth. Even after they’ve read it.

2. People assume what content is worth based on the up-front price.

If you give a kid a puppy, they will, from day one, forget to feed it, walk it, and they will never EVER scoop the poop. However, if that kid begs for a puppy for 3 years before you finally cave and let him have it, they will feed it for a year, walk it for a week, and scoop the poop once. This is still imperfect, but an improvement. The old adage about people not holding value for something that comes too easily is still true.

It’s rare for people to take the advice of any expert seriously. The real value of the words of great men and women, people who’ve been there, those who are self-made millionaires, the kids who’ve made it, is in the action that follows. Reading Think and Grow Rich once will tell you that. It’s all stuff you already know. (Or at least, that you should know.) Nothing in that book is groundbreaking. But the people who’ve taken it seriously and then acted on it, their success becomes legend. And then, the book gets a reputation. But everybody hopes for a free puppy.

When I price my books, I have nothing like the reputation of Andrew Carnegie nor his student Napoleon Hill to rely on to drive sales. I need to justify right up front why my stuff is good, whether it be an instruction manual or any of my crappy fiction. If it’s 99 cents, more people will probably download it than if I had priced it at $9.99. (Or in some cases, $99.00.) But I doubt ten times more people will. And at 99 cents, there’s nothing for my readers to brag about. No reason for them to tell their neighbour about how great this book was. It will be forgotten because it was not valued before they even cracked the cover.

I’ve had clients who have grossly underpriced their work. Every single time, I plead with them to not do it. Some listen, and some don’t. Before you underprice your next eBook, ask yourself, “Why do I feel the need to do this?” Is it fear that the book won’t sell at a higher price? (Fear motivates rarely motivates us to do anything positive, but that’s another article.) Instead, what about doing the tougher job: demonstrating value. Only a poor salesman drops his price. Demonstrating benefits, offering testimonials, samples, and showing long-term cost savings are the way to come out on top.

Remember, you only have to sell 1/9th the quantity of eBooks at $9.99 than you do at 99 cents to come out on top.

Ad Age does a daily rank of the world’s 150 top marketing blogs. Here are my faves off that list, and why.

The daily list is at: http://adage.com/power150/. I read several of them regularly, although I don’t read any of them daily. My list of favourites – in the order they are found on the AdAge list – includes;

- Seth’s Blog: Seth Godin, the sexiest head in marketing, has daily blog posts that are short, to-the-point, and don’t waste time. Inspirational.

- Chris Brogan: Also sexy, but different. I’ve heard Brogan speak at various conferences, and he’s a real, down-to-earth guy with stuff that works. Simple.

- CopyBlogger: Brian Clark talks about words that sell, and why. He’s a WordPress advocate, and his posts are uncomplicated and explanatory. Interesting.

- JohnChow.com: I love him for so much more than being Canadian. John is a racehorse in the world of marketing; sleek and fast. Aggressive.

- ShoeMoney.com: Love this guy’s backstory. A real Basement Techie, all grown up. An eager and hardworking guy with great advice. Funny.

- ProBlogger.net: Darren Rowse has plenty of guest bloggers on his site, all about blogging for money. Specific and technical. Aussie.

- JoelComm.com: If you want to learn about how to use ClickBank or AdSense, this is the guy. Believable and trustworthy. Sensible.

- ChrisG.com: Garrett’s generous new media and WordPress blog fills a gap that others have missed. Smart, understandable, and practical. Clever.

I’m sure there are others just as worthy, but these are the guys on that list that I read regularly. I notice that Michelle MacPhearson’s blog and Frank Kern’s variety of crazy sites have missed the list entirely, which is a real shame. Both are also great folks worth following.

I’m heading to BlogWorld Expo (#BWE10) this week, this year to focus on podcast and blog syndication. I’ll be live tweeting (@peggyrichardson) from the conference, including a mixed bag of speakers and conference sessions.

Last year, I had a similar mission, to learn about video blogging. But this year, having changed some of my podcasting approach to be more spontaneous and less edited, I’m now eager to learn more details about things like syndicating my podcasts, expanding my audio podcasting efforts, and learning more about the relationship between blog content and the various types of RSS syndication.

This year, BWE has slightly changed their approach as well. They are now the largest social media conference, and they’re actively promoting the social media aspect of the show. The speaker list reflects this, and @AngelaCrocker will also be livetweeting from the sessions. She and I often have different takes on these issues, so it may be of interest to compare her notes to mine. We may be in man of the same sessions, or we may not.

If you have any questions or things you’d like me to explore while I’m there, feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to answer your queries.

If you’re also attending, please introduce yourself! I’ll be the tall geeky chick hanging around with the other tall and slightly-less-geeky chick, @AngelaCrocker, one of my fellow @TheBookBroads.

Tweet you later!

I’m super proud to be speaking at this year’s The Word On The Street Festival in Vancouver, BC. On Sunday, September 26th, the other two Book Broads and I will be hosting a FREE panel titled “Build it and they will come – NAH!” It’s all about book marketing, publicity, and generally being in people’s faces.

The description of our talk goes something like this: “Many writers assume once the book is complete, it will sell itself, right? Wrong. No matter the method of publication — traditionally published, entrepreneurially published, or electronically published — the onus of promotion falls on the author. The Book Broads offer practical advice for writers (published or not) to raise their profiles, extend their reach and build their fan base.
Join Angela Crocker, Kimberly Plumley, and Peggy Richardson as they take the sting out of the overwhelming prospect of media interviews, blog posts, Facebook updates, podcasting, and so much more.”

Queue up early! We start at 1:45pm downstairs in the Peter Kaye room of the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. (Yeah, that building that looks like the Roman Colloseum.)

See you there!

It’s often difficult to get hard numbers for eBook sales, but this graph from the International Digital Publishing Forum gives us something close.

Check out the sharp curve from 2008 to 2009, which is the year that the Nook and other eReaders were released, including the second-generation Kindle. The second generation of anything is often better than the first, and the people who wait for the second of everything to come out are what form the bulk of the market.

Impressive.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com

Seth Godin recently wrote a blog post about how subtlety can be a better approach in marketing. His post really got me thinking.

Subtlety is really about the confidence that you have a great product and that your quality will be shown over the long term.

Subtlety is also about letting the reader take ownership of your message (or your book, indeed) because it was not blasted at them in hi-fidelity.

Ownership of discovery of details is what happens when people read a sample chapter.

Ownership is what makes people feel trust for you as a marketer and an Author.

Trust is what lets people give themselves permission to buy.

Smart guy, that Seth.

This excellent post from CopyBlogger details four pillars that should be in the body of any sales page for any book or eBook.

Really, that post reads like a fill-in-the-blanks kind of script for a landing page, which is the thing you should have completed before you complete the book, really. Those four pillars might translate into words on the sales page, or as I’m not really fond of long sales pages, translate into the 4×4 Landing page template.

(You will want to click on both above links, and especially read my earlier post on the subject of landing pages for books and eBooks before reading the rest of this here, or it will make far less sense.)

1. Feel the “pain”. In the quadrant landing page rule, the top left quarter should have an emotive image, which is what allows the reader to put themselves in the picture. In other words, you can use a picture of the pain – you don’t have to write it. This might actually be faster.

2. “So far” and “Out there” could be translated as others are already out there doing it right. In other words, endorsements. This translates to the bottom right quadrant, or the Endorsement Quarter.

3. The Dream Situation is the details – how you communicate this is up to you, but it must be explained what the ideal solution is. This directly corresponds to the bottom left quadrant, or the Details Quarter.

4. Close the deal - this clearly corresponds to the Action Quarter, which is the top right quadrant, the Desired Action.

The buy, the signup, the whatever is an easy close when the buyer has been given all that they need to establish trust.

I heard of another tragic self-publishing trainwreck today. Here are some of the red flags I see regularly, and how to avoid them.

If I sound a bit frustrated in this post, it’s because I am. There are just too many good books that get crushed by the wheels of the self-publishing industry, and it breaks my heart. I won’t name any names, but there is a certain niche of company in the publishing industry that has emerged in the last few years. Let’s call this niche self-publishing service providers. (SPSP’s.)

SPSP’s often offer everything from editing of your manuscript to cover design to printing and shipping/warehousing, and especially, the Big Scary Job for any Author, marketing. Some offer to re-distribute your book for you to major retailers, both online and offline. Some offer to turn your manuscript into an eBook. Some offer to do all of this for one low price. Some offer to do everything for you except to cash your checks and feed your dog.

Many aeons ago, when the publishing industry was in its’ infancy, all publishing was self-publishing. You wrote it, you printed it, you sold it. Any modern publisher who asks you for money to get your book out there is not a publisher: they are a printing company with a great marketing plan.

I am wary of this type of printing and service company, because there is an element of deception in the way some (but not all) disguise themselves as Publishers. There is sometimes an illusion of, “Well, maybe we’ll work with you, but perhaps we won’t…”, and that you must submit your manuscript for consideration first. How ridiculous: of course they will work with you. They are selling you a service. I’ve now heard several first-hand accounts of how prices fluctuate based on how fat they think your wallet is. And I’ve heard even more heart-breaking accounts of how they fail to follow through with their promises, how their systems are difficult to use, how their offerings are not all available for Canadians, and how they convince people to give them sometimes large sums of money without explaining how that investment will pay off.

The difference between a printer and a publisher is that a publisher gives you money, and a printer asks you for money. (I still love to deal with quality printers. See the indent below.) The printer who is asking you for money is doing essentially the same job as the one calling himself a publisher, minus their extra sub-contracted editors and designers and the associated extra costs. They just do one thing, and do it very well.

I really only endorse one method of self-publishing for paper books: hire your own Editor, Designer, Publicist, Marketing Consultant, Virtual Assistant and Printer. Anything else, in my less-than-humble opinion, is only an illusion of control. And why else are you self-publishing, anyway?

If you want an honest-to-goodness book printer that does a great job for a great price, please talk to my friend Gerhard Aichelberger who represents Friesens in my local area. Gerhard himself is a wonderful human being, and I personally guarantee that doing business with him will be a delight. Friesens is a fantastic Canadian book printing company that now prints many of the books in North America, for large and small publishers alike. They do both large and small runs of soft and hardcover books, with an almost unlimited number of options. They are consistent in their pricing, they treat their staff well, they have good environmentally-friendly policies, and when you call them, an actual human will answer the phone, not a machine. (I love that last part.)

Here are some red flags to watch out for when you start your book printing project;

They offer to do everything for you.

Self-publishing is a lot of work. That’s pretty clear. All most Authors want to do is to write, and have someone else take care of the design, printing, editing, and especially, the selling. If it seems too easy, it is. Question everything, because it’s often much cheaper to administer your own sub-contractors (as I’ve described above in bold text) than to rely on them to do it for you. (Much like building your own home instead of relying on a general contractor.)

They don’t tell you anything you don’t like.

My friend and fellow Book Broad, Kim Plumley has a great expression: “Somebody has to tell the emperor he’s naked.” If you feel flattered, feel wary. Editing is a crucial part of the marketing process, and I’ve never heard of an Author who didn’t like something that happened during the Editorial work. Authors treat their books like babies, and vanity presses prey on this. They won’t tell you the harsh realities of what you’ll need to be prepared for when you launch your book business.

They tell you that they can transfer your manuscript automatically to a variety of different outlets and formats.

Ask any Author who’s tried to accomplish a printed paperback and ebook with a single upload. They will offer to buy you dinner while they spend an evening regaling you with entertaining stories about the lack of continuity in the process, the way their first format worked fine but then waited 8 months for the next format they had ordered and pre-paid (yes, I personally talked to a Canadian woman that had been waiting this long for her eBook version) and the lack of support staff available to handle complaints.

They point out that you retain all the copyright and ownership of your work.

Of course you do. You’re self-publishing. That’s like saying that not only can you buy the underpants, but you also have the right to wear them on your head. How useless and obtuse.

They tell you the books will look as good as any book on the shelf in any major bookstore.

Maybe. But know that if you’re printing books in short runs or print-on-demand (ie. one at a time) that’s not probable, although the technology is definitely catching up fast. Your options for things like paper and cover style choices will be fewer. Your design of your cover is likely to be based on a template. Your book size options will be one of the 2-5 on their menu. Your editor has 50 other books to get done by Friday. Ask what methods and machinery they use to print and bind books, and then compare it to this and this. Theirs is paint-by-number publishing, and they want to fit you into their pigeonholes, not meet your needs or ideal design options.

They say they will do all the marketing for you.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

OK Peg, there’s got to be something positive in this somewhere.

The gain here is that we learn to discern great opportunity from great risk. I’m just asking you to be cautious in your selection of companies to do business with, and to be sure that you consider your objectives for the project carefully. If one of your objectives is making money, please take the marketing and costs of your product into account before you spend a dime or type a single letter. Your easiest choice is rarely the most profitable.

Now is the right time for the discussion about SPSP’s to start. The more of us entrepreneurial publishers develop specific and discerning skills when it comes to choosing with whom to do business, the more honest and valuable companies will rise to fill the niche. And since we know that everybody has a book in them…