In my previous post, I wrote about how you can use a book to grow your business.

But business growth is not the only goal that you can accomplish with a book.

Your goal can be influence and fame. A book can help with it.

You can also use your book as a tool to get leads on autopilot.

In both cases, lead with a digital-first approach.

Why You Need A Well Thought Digital Version Of Your Book?

Because with the digital version of your book, you can easily automate delivery without worrying about the cost of print, packaging and mailing it to the buyer. In other words digital scales well.

Also because a large percentage of potential readers expect to read a book on their mobile devices.

Digital is important for first-time authors and those with a small digital footprint because Amazon and other sales platforms are important for effective distribution.

Consider these for your book, with the digital version in mind.

Length

Keep it short on purpose. Maximum 120-180 pages. This way your book’s print version will not look too thin and a reader will be able to read it in one sitting (4-8 hours).

Images

Use images, graphs or tables but don’t overdo it.

In the case of a business book, the author may want to add graph, images, and tables to explain the topic clearly. For example, there are more than 200 images and charts in my book on digital marketing.

This presents a unique challenge. Some of these graphs and tables may not render well on ebook readers. That is why I chose to sell direct (with a PDF for those who wanted a digital download). Thankfully my book had a solid word of mouth. But for the next edition, I am eating my own dog food by creating a digital version like I recommend here.

When you tell me that you want a lot of graphs, chart, and pictures in your book, I hear you. But I will suggest you take a good look at your book after it is done and see how you reduce the number of visuals.

Readability

Play with fonts, section breaks and tricks like using featured text with a darker background to break the monotony and emphasize important points. So that your book is easy on eyes.

Taking Your Digital Version To Your Audience

Once this is taken care, identify the audience – those who you want to read the book. Create a simple website and start running ads on Facebook targeting your desired audience. Bring them to the website and ask for their email, phone number in exchange for first 3-4 chapters of your book. On, thank you page, prompt them to become a part of book community that you can host on Facebook.

2-3 days after they download the book, send them a prompt to see if they read the book. Offer to send them a free digital copy and to make them an ambassador if they take time to read and want to help spread the word.

You can then run a contest with your ambassadors to get them to take your book to their networks. Aim to build a community of 100 ambassadors before launching such a contest.

This should be good to get you started with buzz building for your book.