Going Wide: Why Multiple Book Formats Matter

Historically, when a traditional publishing house put out major new releases, they would do so with a dust jacket hardcover edition. That might sell for a few months, and then a more affordable trade paperback would show up in bookstores. Years later, if the book continued to sell well, a mass-market paperback edition might get a print run as well.

For popular authors, special editions with unique covers are a common trend, particularly for backlist titles. 

Of course, we’ve got ebooks and audiobooks today, two new book formats in the last two decades. 

That led to a wide variety of format possibilities for authors and publishers to consider.

Why Multiple Formats Matter

For traditional publishing houses, offering a single book in multiple formats is an obvious way to increase profits. One product (the book) becomes multiple products (a paperback, a hardcover, a large print edition, etc.); more products mean more for consumers. 

It’s 100% that simple. Publishers, being for-profit businesses, first understand the best way to sell more books is to offer those books in the formats their readers want. Without a one-size-fits-all book format, selling in more formats ensures more readers (and more profits). 

Interestingly, digital formats are largely responsible for the rising popularity of self-publishing, but they have also overshadowed the impact of print formats for some time. 

We all know more or less why this happened for a period of time, from the early 2000s until just recently. And for many (many) fiction authors, the focus on selling ebooks online was appealing. It’s inexpensive, formatting an ebook is easier than a print book, and retailers like Amazon have a massive audience. 

But, as self-publishing matures and we all learn the best ways to reach audiences, many authors and creators realize the value of ‘going wide.’

What is Going Wide?

In the publishing world, ‘going wide’ refers to any publishing strategy aiming to distribute a book across multiple platforms and retailers. Rather than exclusively selling through a single channel (like Kindle Direct Publishing), going wide embraces all of your selling options. 

Building Your Book Business

If you’re an author or creator with an audience you’ve been building, you’re well-positioned to use self-publishing to sell your books. Self-publishing has a lot of advantages for independent creators:

1. Control – You’ll own your website and your content, and you’ll be in complete control of your business.
2. Speed – Traditional publishing can take years. Self-publishing a book can take months or even just weeks!
3. Profits – When you sell directly to your readers, you can retain 100% of your revenue.
4. Customer Data – Adding a new fan or reader to your mailing list means you’ve got their email address and an invitation to share more of your content with them.
5. Costs – Print-on-demand eliminates overhead, keeping your cost to do business low.
6. Adaptability – Because you’re in control of your book business, you can quickly make changes based on your insights or shifts in your audience.

While it is a lot of work (but what independent business isn’t?), you’ll have the control and versatility to grow your business exactly how you want. Thanks to on-demand printing and versatile self-publishing platforms (like Lulu), you can publish and sell a wide variety of book sizes and formats with very little additional cost.

Modern Book Formats

Today, most authors will sell at least a print book and an ebook. And audiobooks are gaining popularity, though self-publishing an audiobook is still more expensive than print or digital.

Within these three formats, you can find a wide range of additional variations. 

It’s also important to note that publishing in multiple formats has become significantly easier. Tools like Atticus and Vellum allow you to input your manuscript and apply print book formatting to create different styles, book sizes, and more. Likewise, that same manuscript can be formatted for different ebook formats. When you’re done, you download an EPUB format ebook and print-ready PDF for your printed books. 

Print Books

To self-publish a print book, you’ll need a formatted PDF for the interior and another for the cover. Don’t worry, we’ve got loads of free guides and templates to help you prepare those files. 

Here’s the thing—even if you do your own formatting with something like Adobe InDesign, your first print book interior will get you 90% of the way to all your other formats. You’ve already proofed the book, you’ve got your fonts and styles in place, and everything is in a print-ready template. 

Or, as I mentioned above, you could use formatting software to generate different trim sizes or interior formatting options easily. However, you should note that these tools (while incredibly affordable) are not free. 

Here is a non-exhaustive list of some different kinds of print books you could offer:

• Standard size Paperback
• Mass market size Paperback
• Standard size Hardcover
• Large print Paperback
• Special edition paperback or hardcover (or both!) with:
  • Alternate art book cover
  • Color interior with images or graphics
  • New introduction or author note
• Teaching edition with reader guide

Plus, with the improvements in AI translations, you could affordably offer each of those formats in different languages, too!

While you probably don’t want to have ALL those different formats available on your store, you should pay attention to the formats your readers (or the people you want to be your readers) go for. 

Because each format only requires a unique PDF interior, it’s easy to offer a variety and to add new formats to meet your customer’s wants or needs.

Ebooks

Because they are a much simpler format, ebooks will not have as much variation as printed books. Historically, one of the key selling points of ebook publishing is that they are the easiest way to publish quickly.

While that remains true, preparing PDF files for print-on-demand has become easy enough now that there isn’t a significant difference. What’s important is to offer an ebook and ensure that it works for readers who require different file formats.

Today, that’s not nearly as much of an issue as it was a few years ago. Previously, Amazon used its own file format for Kindle readers. But as of 2023, Kindles work just fine with EPUBs without converting to Amazon’s proprietary format. 

It’s important to ensure you offer all of your books as ebooks. For many readers (and I speak from experience), the option to read from a phone or ereader (usually at a lower price than a print book) is a deciding factor. Ebooks can be a terrific entry point for new readers who want to try out your content but don’t want to invest in a printed copy.  

That doesn’t mean you can’t create unique or special edition ebooks, too! Any of the content additions I mentioned for print books, like alternate art covers or a new introduction, will work great for ebooks, too.

Audiobook

Audiobooks are a fast-growing format that readers (or are they listeners?) are leaning into. Despite only accounting for 5% of book sales in 2023, predictions indicate that the share of the market will increase by 25% per year for the next ten years. 

If math isn’t your thing, there will be a substantial increase in audiobook sales and revenue. 

This means that you, as an independent author who wants to provide your readers with your book in whatever form they prefer, should start thinking about audiobooks. 

Luckily, there are many great publishing and author services, like BookFunnel, that are making it easier and more affordable to publish an audiobook. The most important factor for you will likely be cost. While publishing a print edition or ebook is fairly inexpensive, audiobook recording requires more physical equipment and a voice actor.

While there isn’t any real standard pricing for audiobook recording, Perplexity.ai is a terrific search engine for aggregating information on the web. Here is their short breakdown in cost estimates to have an audiobook professionally recorded:

• Low-End Estimate: $500 (DIY with minimal equipment)
• Mid-Range Estimate: $2,000 to $5,000 (professional narrator and minimal production services)
• High-End Estimate: $5,000 to $7,000 (full-service production with professional narrator and producer)

Here’s the primary source for Perplexity’s estimate. 

Basically, for a few hundred dollars, you could get low-end recording equipment and record your book yourself. For a couple thousand, you can have it professionally recorded; for many thousands, you can have that high-end production value, too. 

While audiobooks might not be in your budget yet, you should consider them. This might be the perfect opportunity to run a poll on your site or through your email subscriber list to gauge interest. 

Maximum formats, Maximum options

Diversifying is incredibly important when selling your book online and by hand. Think about it like this: you’ll never again lose a sale because the buyer doesn’t want to wait for shipping. They can order an ebook! And the customer who simply loves hardcover books and is willing to spend a little more to get that can do so! Maximum formats mean maximum exposure!

Best of all, creating multiple formats is inexpensive and requires minimal time and effort.