A while back, I bought an ebook online for $7.
I received an email with the download instruction shortly after. When I opened the email - looking forward to get my hands on the ebook, I found myself pleasantly surprised.
The book author (Charles) made a simple gesture that didn't just make me feel that I get more value than I paid for, it also actually improves my reading experience and learning journey.
In this short article, I want to share these simple tips that every book author should consider while sharing your ebook - regardless if you are an author self-publishing on Amazon KDP, or an online business using free book download as a lead magnet to upsell your products.
A glossary of terms is a alphabetically ordered collection of words / phases and their definition in the context of a particular knowledge domain.
This is exactly what I get from Charles' ebook: A 2-pager glossary of SEO terms. As a reader, I really appreciate this move for a few reasons:
People who download and read your book could have varied stages of familiarity with the book subject. Adding a simple glossary of terms PDF files makes it easy for everyone to easily grasp the subject with the right context, without having resort to other sources of truth.
When you are writing a book of a specific domain knowledge, there is always the temptation of inserting contextual definition for every industrial specific keywords or jargon.
Doing so will always lead to unnecessarily long-winded sentences, thus disrupting the reading flow.
With a glossary of terms included as part of the download, the ebook can be written in a manner where readers are assumed to be well versed and experienced in the subject like you.
This doesn't just create an easy reading flow, it also makes for a more professional narrative tonality in your book.
We all want the best reading experience possible for our ebook. One way to achieve this is by ensuring the book display well in different devices.
While PDF is a more universally accepted ebook format, there are times where your PDF will not render well in devices like Amazon's Kindle. Considering how Kindle is one of the most popular e-readers in the market, you should not hesitate to include Kindle friendly files in your ebook offering.
EPUB files are the most popular ebook format for Kindle and other e-readers. It is designed to be layout agnostic, which means its format isn't affected by the screen size and could still be read even on small screens.
Converting your PDF to EPUB is easy, and can be done for free with many online converters like Convertio and Zamzar.
If your eBook is a colorful book, then it might not render well in Kindle or any other e-readers; as most of the can only support a black and white shade.
This is when you should consider including a separate PDF file that is black and white only (preferably black text on white background) catering to readers on Kindle.
No matter what you are using your ebook for, it is important to help readers feel that they are getting way more value than they pay for.
This doesn't always require a lot of additional work. By simply adding a companion materials like glossary of terms and Kindle friendly format, most readers would be thankful for your considerate gesture.