I am being asked a lot: “most of the books acquisitions worldwide are of printed books, so why are you preaching about digital books so much”? This is definitely a suitable question, and in this post, I will give you, the reader & you the writer, some answers.

Let’s start with the reader:

Easy Purchasing

You can purchase books online through Amazon or any other worldwide bookstore, 24/7. You don’t depend on opening hours and availability or if the book is in stock or not.

We here at ‘Simple Story’ purchase books that are not available in Israel and the digital media enable us to get them from anywhere in the world.

Quick Book Reception

From the moment of purchase, the book is in your possession in mere minutes. We live in an impatient generation; we don’t like to delay gratifications. You have decided that you like a certain book and you want it here & now, with a digital book that is what you’ll get.

Ease of Reading, Carrying & Storage

No more packing up 5 books for a week vacation abroad & pay for over-weight to the airline company. One electronic device (Kindle, Tablet, smartphone) stores hundreds of books.  Of course, you also clear up your home from storing bookshelves of dozens of books you read once and don’t have anything to do with it anymore. You’ve earned room for wall art & décor. Beyond that, you are able to control the font size, background shade, and even the font type.
I find it very easy to control visually and the ease of flipping through the pages & chapters is very convenient. Most devices also ‘remember’ what page you were last reading, and on your next reading, you will reach the exact same page. There’s also a possibility for bookmarks if there is more than one reader for the book.

The Price

The majority of digital books is significantly cheaper than printed books. It makes sense as you don’t need papers, printer, transportation, distributors & a store to profit from it. with the low cost of digital books, you can buy more books on the budget.

The Environment

For environmentalists, digital books bring major satisfaction; fewer trees are cut down for paper, less wood delivered by ships and tracks to printer shops & stores, this is a major energy saving process. Books packaging are spared from recycling cans & plastic bags and, of course, you need fewer storages to store the tens of thousands of printed by not selling books.

After reading the first part of this post the reader is already convinced, he should move on to digital books, now let me explain to you, the writer, what are your advantages in the digital sector. Most of what is written here is for the independent writer, the unfamiliar author, but the principals apply also to well-known published authors who have yet to transform their book into digital books:

You are Independent!!!

As a writer, publishing digital books online, you are your own boss. You decide where to publish when to publish & at what price, how the cover should look like, how to promote it etc.

Unlike a book issued by a publisher, where you have limited impact, here you call the shots! When you write & publish your own book no one would reject it or tell you that your book is not adequate enough or all kinds of more or less polite answers book publishing gives out.

Immortality for Your Book

Printed books arrive in stores and stay on the shelves for weeks or maybe months. After that, they move on to storage and aired out on special sales.

When you publish a digital book it has an immortal life as long as the internet exists, clients have a chance to get to it at any hour of the day from anywhere in the world.

Costs Savings

Assuming that all writing expenses including the writing, paging, cover & more are identical, we still have a distinct costs gap during the distribution stage.

A printed book needs printing, publishers demand mostly at least 1,000 copies to distribute to as many shops as possible, a cost of about 15,000 NIS (depends on the book of course). You have to pay a distributor to transport and place your book in stores, bookstores want to earn proceeds it makes sense, and they should. The overall of expenses sum up to around 25,000 NIS with no guarantee or knowing that the book will be successful and sell well, many times you will get back hundreds of printed copies that you will need to store.

Royalties

Due to the major expenses mentioned in the previous paragraph, you, the writer don’t have anything left. The writers’ law is trying to minimize that problem, but with relatively less success. The ‘4 books in 100 NIS’ sales and the likes continue and leaving you with pennies.

With a digital book, Amazon pays you 35% or 70% royalties of the book price (which is set by you). Other online digital books websites pay high royalties; some even 100% of the revenue after an initial payment to the website.

It is important for me to emphasize that I do recommend anyone to give readers who wish to buy a printed copy of this opportunity upon order. Amazon has an internal system of ‘Print on Demand’.  There are also local Israeli printer shops, that we work with, who can give you a solution for printing out 100 and 200 copies in reasonable prices. It is also important to proudly present a copy of our book to friends, colleagues & family members.

 

In conclusion, the digital books market is constantly growing, but the printed books market is still larger & popular so it is not recommended to overlook it. It is recommended to find a solution of print by demand and mainly give our readers the digital available version for him to read through easily & in high availability.