This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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If you want to publish a book, what is the best format for that book? Is it physical, is it digital, something else like audio? Today's caller wants to earn passive income from her book that gives grandparents ideas for activities to do with their grandkids. But she's torn between the different options and she's also short on time, like so many of us. Is there a single answer to this question, print versus digital?
Is there one answer that's best for her? And what are the pros and cons to each approach? Should I make a physical or digital book? That's what we're gonna talk about in this episode. Here's a shout out to our sponsor and then we'll dive right in.
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Hi, this is Angie from Missouri and I'm a new listener of the show. I found you on LinkedIn Learning and your videos have been on repeat. I currently have a website called grandmacreates.com where I teach grandparents ways to bond with their grandkids by doing crafts, recipes, life sharing, et cetera. I want to create a grandma fun book full of kids jokes, crafts to do with young kids and recipes. I also wanna create a grandpa fun book full of just about the same things that only geared more towards grandpas.
I'm extremely busy with my current job and I have a husband and a 14 year old son at home. My plan is to work on the book for about an hour or two every night. My question is if I should make this an ebook or a physical book. I like the idea of passive income after the work is done and with the physical book, it takes a lot more time and effort. But I also am one that likes to hold a physical book in my hand and bookmark the best pages.
Although I'm a young grandma at 43 years old, I think that a lot of older grandparents feel the same way that I do. I can't wait to hear from you and thanks so much. Angie, thank you so much. Really glad you're enjoying my LinkedIn learning classes. I actually had a lot of fun making those classes, especially one that's called 32 Ways to Make Extra Money.
If you have a LinkedIn learning account, it's completely free. Or if you have a lynda.com account also completely free, you can search for it there on that platform. But let's talk about your site, Angie, because I think you have a really nice site design. I would encourage everyone to go and check out grandmacreates.com. Not just design, but also functionality, user experience, et cetera.
It's really well done. So as for your question, I guess my first question is who is the book for? Which is where we should always start with. Like who is the book for? It's always good to think about your customers, your clients, your readers, whoever they are, not just yourself.
Now you may actually be an archetype of your customer. You may actually understand your customer's needs quite well because you have them yourself in some cases, but in other cases, perhaps not. You might actually learn something about your customers. So really good to think, okay, who's the book for? What is best for them?
And in this case, I think perhaps our inclination is to say, okay, well considering the book, considering the target market, et cetera, a print version is best. But here's the thing. It's not just about the usability of it. It's also the accessibility of it. Because if you're sitting down with one person and they can choose the print or the digital, you might say, oh, the print version is better.
But before you can even get to that point, you have to get the book to them, right? So if you want to reach a lot of people, accessibility is paramount. And based on what Angie said, as well as just by looking at her website, which as I said is well done, I think it might be a lot easier to get a digital version of this book to more people than it would a print version. And she's also very busy. As she mentioned, she has these constraints just like so many of our other listeners.
Now, in the end, you don't have to decide between this format or that format. If the book does well, if it really resonates, you probably want to do both. Like a lot of people actually have a print version, an ebook, but the point is you don't have to choose necessarily between one format. If it gets to where you want to do both, then you can check out CreateSpace, which is a self-publishing service owned by Amazon. There are some other competing services as well.
And as an author, my perspective on books is I want people to read them or enjoy them, appreciate them, however is best for them. Like ultimately, my goal as an author is to reach people with my ideas and stories. So I actually want to be in as many formats as possible. But of course, I understand when you're getting started, when time is limited, et cetera, you have to make these choices. So I hope that's helpful.
Thank you again, Angie. Good luck with Grandma Creates. And I hope to hear more before the end of the year. Listeners, if you've got a question of your own, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll be featuring them throughout the year, as you can tell, along with updates.
It's so fun to work on this show for you every day. By the way, I know I've said that before, but honestly, pretty much every day I think it. Honestly, every day I'm like, it's so cool to be able to make this program for awesome people out there doing all kinds of fun projects. So keep it up. I'm going to keep making the show, but you keep doing awesome stuff.
Thank you so much. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
