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Is a hardcover worth more than an ebook?

July 10th, 2018 by Bob Bly

Subscriber AW writes:

“I read your recommendation on the sales book by author X. It
sounds interesting, but I am not sold on spending $40 on an ebook
— though I would for a hardcover copy of the book. Thanks for
sharing the recommendation, though.”

While I have great respect for AW and like her a lot, I believe
her thinking on this topic is wrong-headed.

The reason is simple: the value of specialized information
targeted at a narrow niche audience is enormous. And the value
is in the content, not the format of the book.

Louis L’Armour wrote, “Books are the building blocks of
civilization, for without the written word, a man knows nothing
beyond what occurs during his own brief years, and, perhaps, in a
few tales his parents tell him.”

My late friend, the great info marketer Jerry Buchanan, said, “A
book that instructs in some profitable field is a priceless
treasure. And if the bookseller offers it and you fail to assume
ownership, who will be the poorer, you or he?”

He also said that people who wanted to make money or start a
business and did not avail themselves of good books on the
subject were “starving to death with a loaf of bread under each
arm.”

The value of a how-to book is in the information between the
covers, not the covers themselves.

I am confident that the knowledge in the book I recommended to AW
could have increased her annual income by $10,000, which is a
250:1 return on investment — regardless of whether the book is a
PDF or paperbound book. Why would you pass up on an ROI like
that?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2018 at 11:43 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

12 responses about “Is a hardcover worth more than an ebook?”

  1. Anna Shetty said:

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  2. miniMAX Solution Canada Inc. said:

    In my opinion, Pdf’s are really cheap at the cost of hard copies, get online ton’s of e-book free rather you have to waste $ thousand of dollars on a specific book.
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  4. davidroger said:

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  8. pikcat said:

    For me, the content of book or ebook and its value is not different, buying ebook will help me save more space :p I do prefer book than ebook, I think everyone does, and I agree with you, “And the value
    is in the content, not the format of the book.”
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  9. Mimi said:

    I don’t completely agree that the content is the only valuable part. The format dictates how the reader interacts with the content. One of my friends is legally blind. My mother’s vision is declining in her 80s. So some of the formatting and features of ebooks and audiobooks (reading aloud, resizing text) is important to them. I spend a lot of time looking at computer screen, so I prefer printed books.

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  12. Kajal Thakkar said:

    Highly rated and commented post so far i read. Great Post. Keep posting like this article daily. I will read it.

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