Digital vs Print Considerations

"Foreign."

Stuart: Welcome to another episode of the book More Show. My name is Stuart Bell and joined today by Betsy Vaughan. We grabbed a quick conversation as I was leaving Tampa last week so might get some airport noises in the background, but it was a great conversation. Looking at something that's come up quite a few times over the last couple of weeks. And this is the idea of in intentionality of how you intend to first use your book. So what we really want you to do is get the project completed and get it out there used in a way that makes the most sense. So depending on how that is, whether it's in a physical sense or a digital sense, some of those that can inform some of the decisions through the process. So where you have to put your time and effort could vary slightly depending on how you plan on using it. This I think is particularly key if you're doing this project by yourself. If you're not working with us, obviously we're there to guide you all the way through the process and help keep things moving. But if this is something that you're looking at doing by yourself, then narrowing down these kind of scope creep into areas that you don't need to spend any time or certainly don't need to spend any time yet really means that you can get the project completed out there getting that real world feedback, engaging those people that would otherwise pass by as quickly and effectively as possible. So great episode and excited to get this out with you.

Guest: Betsy Vaughan.

Guest: Stuart Bell. How are you?

Guest: Good, thank you. We're going to do things a little bit differently today. We are a bit squeezed on time. I realized it had been a couple of weeks since we did it. I had it in the diary to do all this week and then all of a sudden we're Friday and I'm back at the airport.

Guest: Back at the airport. There we go. All right.

Guest: I think the 2020 will be the year of time distortions because I'm sure each individual day or month has taken. Certainly March and April took forever to pass. But then blink and we're just right on the heels of May coming into June.

Guest: Right. It's crazy how this month has gone fast. Yeah, yeah. Well, the last few months it's like what happened? I mean, I guess what happened is I'm sitting at my house for three and a half months. But whatever, it's.

Guest: If I said we don't have a framework for a global pandemic,

Guest: we probably should come off of that, not touch on that subject.

Guest: Yeah, yeah. Hopefully it's a one off. Alrighty. So let's talk something book related and hopefully. Yeah, what do you want to talk about? Well, hopefully the audio is not too bad because this might be punctured by the background music that there's no people within like 300ft of me, but the background music is piping through. And every now and then there's the announcements coming up. So hopefully that doesn't interfere with what we're talking about too much.

Guest: Well, you know, it's funny, I was thinking about this. I've watched a couple of different shows, television, and I've started keeping a list of places I want to go just based on wherever the show. Like one of the shows, they were in Santa Barbara. I'm like, I've never been to Santa Barbara. I'm going to add it to my list. You know, that kind of thing. I've been doing this and someplace. Oh, Newport, Rhode Island. I've never been to Newport, Rhode Island. That was a show last night. And I'm like, it looks just quite quaint. So maybe I'll hear something in the background, you know, like flight sparker Kalamazoo is leaving.

Guest: Well, I'm stood outside a Cayman Air gate, so maybe that's more exciting than Philadelphia.

Guest: Right, Exactly. There you go. All right, so what do you want to talk about? Sorry.

Guest: So today. Yeah, sorry, sidetracked. So today I think a good thing to talk about, because it's come up a few times recently, will be. I can't think of a better way of describing it than kind of start with the end in mind and think about the usage of your book. So I was talking to the dean last night. We had some dinner before I left, and we were talking about the kind of the print quality of the pages of a book and how the kind of look and feel is. But then quickly, the conversation quickly turned to the fact that the majority of people, not the vast majority, but definitely the majority, are using the books that they've created in a digital sense. So the digital version of the book and how that. How that gets delivered is irrelevant to the look and feel of the physical book itself.

Guest: Right.

Guest: But then the second point that then spun off was, okay, well, what about reformatting the book so that it was on 8 by 11 rather than 5 by 6? 5 by 6. 5 by 8.

Guest: 5 by 8. Yeah.

Guest: My inches confused reformatting that. And the point that I made there was that the volume of pages, it's not really the case that people are printing out, so there's no need to change it to that page format. So that it prints out nicer. So the job of work that the book does by remaining in the book format is that it's still, it's a book, it's the electronic version of the actual book itself. It's not just another document that they're sent that can be confused with a PDF or white paper or ebook or anything like that. So I think it'd be interesting to. To dive into that thinking about the end in mind, thinking about how you actually can use it a little bit more. If that sounds good, I think that's

Guest: a great idea because we, I know we had this conversation the other day just how people tend to, to freeze up, like, oh, I don't know, I don't, you know, but they know that they can tell you why they want to write the book and, and who it's for and all those things. But when we get to that, when you ask them, it seems like they just go completely blank, you know, like really to think about that a little bit more in depth, you know, before starting the process. Yeah.

Guest: And I think that informs all the rest of the process. So when we look at the book blueprint scorecard, the eighth mindset on there is the beyond the book mindset and ways of getting it out there. So the other seven kind of concentrate a little bit more on the creation process, the kind of defining and refining. But that eighth mindset is definitely the case that it's eighth for a reason. Don't necessarily want to delay the process too much. Once you know the kind of single target audience that you're looking at, the function of creating it, you don't want to delay that and go into kind of an analysis paralysis. But it can definitely inform the decisions that you make through the process. So a couple of examples that really swing to mind are going to be things like. And I'll talk about the extremes just for the ease of the illustration. So we've got printing physical copies where you're actually going to get them to people and then really using it in a digital format and using it as part of it as an opt in cookie for an email sequence that you then follow up with by email. So obviously it's not. No one's really in the situation where it's just one of those answers. But I think even if it's just pick one to begin with or make an assumption around the one that you're more likely to use, have something to start with because then at least then you can get out of the gate once the book's completed, follow through on that initial thought and then consider all of the other elements afterwards. But it's almost one of the most disappointing things that we see is where someone will start the process, get a book completed, but then we'll check back in with people a few months later and they haven't actually quite got around to do anything with it yet. It's kind of always the next thing on the list, but always gets pushed down on the list. It's not until you get it out there, particularly then when you compare that to. We were talking to Don Cooper the other day and he was feeding back that they landed a multimillion dollar contract in like days of having the book out there because they were able to use it. I think he used it in a physical sense, but in a meeting. And that was certainly a help. I'm sure it wasn't the reason, the sole reason, but certainly help him converting that client into helping them over the line was having the book that talked about the subject. So there's such a great. Peter Urso. We were talking to Peter last week and again, similar thing. He's been able to use his book in a digital sense and the physical sense, but both in the context of following up with potential customers. And again, he has. He tells of the book being a clincher in the kind of onboarding process of having identified people and then coming in for a meeting or a consultation through to. Oh yeah, this is the right. I'm in the right place because clearly I'm talking to the expert here, the person that wrote the book on the subject.

Guest: Absolutely. That's a big, you know, that's a big. I'm trying to think who it was. I want to say it was Joe Yakovic, but if he's listening to this and it wasn't, then I apologize. But. So I think he was on an airplane. One of our financial guys, he was on an airplane and started having a conversation with this person, you know, about financials. He's a financial advisor and he gave him a copy of the book and this person in turn sent him someone that he could work with. I'm going to say he positive it was Joe, but that he could work with. And it ended up being a very significant dollar amount that Joe took on from this random person on the. You know, so it's kind of that, you know, he does. Didn't necessarily know him from Adam, you know, and that book was the. Wow, this isn't. This guy must know what he's talking about. You know, it really is.

Guest: It's Less likely that it would be the soul things. Sometimes I think people think about anything in kind of totality in that this is the, this is the thing that will like an ad, a Google Ad. They think of the Google Ads being the be all and end all, and they're looking for the results and the metrics around the ads, but not necessarily taking into consideration the bigger picture. The same with the book. It's not that the book is going to magically convert all of this stuff by itself. It's not a kind of build it and they will come type model, but it's definitely a very strong, compelling factor tied in with all of the other stuff you're doing to help people. I don't even want to say push them over the edge, because it's not so much that, but it's, it's another tick in the box of reassuring people they're in the right place, that they have made the right decision and now they just need to execute on it.

Guest: And you know, if you think it's a stranger, a stranger who's never heard of you and they see this book, I mean, that's it, that, that in itself, it is that attention grabber, you know, like, then it really is the book that kind of gets, gets, gets the ball rolling or maybe was the thing that, you know, made somebody decide, hey, I'm going to work with you or I'm going to call you or whatever, you know.

Guest: Yeah. So that example then is a physical example. So let's stick with that one first. And I've, I've kind of walked down the one end of the terminal where it's pretty quiet, but there is actually some construction work going on. So although there's not many passengers around now, it just did some drilling and cutting starting. So it sounds like a building site. Yeah, it adds some texture to the podcast.

Guest: Right, exactly.

Guest: So that physical sense. So let's make the assumption that you know that to begin with, the first job of work you want the book to achieve is in a physical sense. So when we're going through the process, when we're putting together all of the production stages of pulling your words together onto the page, then knowing that you do want to concentrate a little bit more on this physical element of it, means that it makes sense to put a little bit more attention on that, on that part. So where it might not be that important for the page bakes and the look and feel and the flow, in a physical sense, you can kind of make that assumption that someone will have it in the hand go from the front cover to the back cover and then start thumbing through. So the table of contents is very important. People will typically thumb through the visual headings as the. The breaks in the chapters and the sections within a page and how elements kind of pull quotes or charts or tables, all those things stand out in the physical sense. Knowing that people are thumbing through that gives a slightly different impression or slightly different attention or intentionality around those elements as opposed to anticipating that you're going to use it primarily in a digital sense. And in that scenario, people start much more from the top and work their way down and they're scrolling through and the number of pages they see on screen may vary. If people are opting into a digital ad that you've got on say Facebook and they're sending out the opt in form on their phone and then they get them taken to either the email confirmation, you deliver them or you deliver them straight to the book, then expecting screen size is different. All of those elements are good to think about beforehand because what you can do is it's not so much about putting. I was going to say it's not so much, but I guess it's equal amount not putting too much attention on things that aren't important as well as putting the attention on those things that are important. Knowing that use case. So thinking about the. If you've not got a scenario where you think that you're going to print many of them, then the paper quality of the type of books or whether you order a color interior or black and white interior is less relevant than if you are going to print physical ones. If you are going to print physical ones. The flip side is important. If you've got a lot of kind of high density charts, you've got some images maybe where the definition on the image isn't great. Like I saw a book, I described it in the office, it came in the other day. There was one image in there. There's a couple of images, a couple of tables and charts and slides, that type of thing in there, all of which is great. But one of them had the colors which I'm assuming look perfectly fine on a color screen, but when printed in black and white on the page, the letters, even for my eyes, which aren't terrible, it was a little bit difficult to read. So all of these elements, and I think the reason that we maybe haven't particularly talked about this before in the past is because it's not the most important thing. Most important thing is getting out there. But all of These languages little elements can push the levers a little bit more just given the use case you anticipate in using. So thinking about the end, thinking about how it's going to be received by people, think about the call to action. Sometimes you'll see people will put links in physical books and the links are taken from the Internet and they're long drawn out multi folder links where you'd have to be be typing for 10 minutes if you actually wanted someone expecting someone to type that link and put it in there. So things like that. The way around that would be to use a link shortener or put the links on your own domain and then redirect them. Or if you can host the actual PDF or the presentation or whatever it is, if you can host that yourself so you don't have to push people off to a separate place, which is difficult to get to in the physical sense. One of the things that we've just started looking at recently, and I'm conscious I'm talking fast here, but one of the things we've just started looking at recently is QR codes. Again because for the longest time QR codes always required a third party app in order to download them, which obviously that was a big barrier to anyone actually doing anything with those. But since iOS 12, I think QR codes are native now to iPhones, they've been native on Android phones for a long time. So if there is a big thing that you need to link to have a QR code as well as having the actual ring link there just to make it as easy as possible. Now again, flicking back to the digital version, that's not really too much of an issue because if you anticipate in sending the digital version then the document itself can be linked. So people just need to click on the link in the documents. If these additional things that you want people to do are important, then you can contain that in the body of the email or follow up email highlighting these important things and build it into the follow up sequence. All of these elements, thinking about how you intend to use it, not just the who's going to receive it, but the context in which they're going to receive it. Really can now start pulling the, as I say, pulling the levers of the effectiveness of the thing. Absolutely not to distract from the fact that creating it in the first place, targeting a single target market and having to strong call to action is the most important thing. These little additional things now you can really start to kind of incrementally move the needle on how effective it is.

Guest: You were talking about digital just a minute ago, and I was going to comment on. I'm not sure why, but we were talking about what was in there in the paper and that kind of thing. I accidentally sent someone a digital copy of Breakthrough DNA. And not I meant to send it, but I sent the wrong copy. And the copy that I sent did not have the front cover page on it. And the person reached back and said, is there not a front cover? Like, why is it. There's not. And I'm like, yeah, there is. I didn't even realize that I grabbed the wrong one. And I said, oh, yeah, that looks really good. I mean, that is really sharp. And that, like, that person was. So it took me back because I'm thinking, wow. Like, that's the first thing they realized, like. And they wanted to see that, you know.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: How people pay attention to things like that.

Guest: Right. Because it breaks their mental model. I think if someone says. If someone says the word book, you immediately, like, say, if I say lemon or elephant or apple, all of those things, those simple words immediately create an image in your mind. You can't. You can't stop it. We're kind of visually inspired people. So the same thing with the book. Someone says, oh, let me send you a copy of the book. I really don't think it matters whether you physically send them a copy of the book or electronically send them a copy of the book. But what does matter is it looks like a book when it arrives. So that's why the digital versions of the books that we create are in the exact same format as the physical versions. The COVID the imprint, the left and right justification on the pages. I mean, if the job of work was to share the information, then sending a digital copy of the book that was in that format is a less good job than sending it in the format that we send it with the left, right justification, because it's very slightly harder to read. And there's blank pages in there which are representative, the physical version, and there's page numbers at the bottom and things like that, which are irrelevant in a digital sense. But the job of work isn't to deliver the information. The primary job of work is to engage people with the book and get them to raise their hand and the thing that they're expecting is the book. And the social credibility is of an author. People who write PDFs and ebooks aren't typically thought of as authors by the community at large. People who write books are sort of as authors. All of these mental model Things. I mean, it's ridiculous when you think about it, but it's. Yeah, it's the thing that keeps society moving. Like all of these assumptions you have to make to get free things day by day, when you actually break it down, it's a bit crazy. So I paused a little bit, just checking on one of my flights. Checking out. God, camera talking. Yeah, all of these things when you've actually some of it. But the kind of underlying mental models that we're all walking around with, it really does make a difference.

Guest: Yeah, it really does.

Guest: One of the things that then comes off the back of that is this idea of jumping now over to. So we talked then about physical. And if physical is the way you go first, then the. What the end product is. Physical end product is more important than otherwise. On the digital version, that then takes us into a little bit of a conflict because we wouldn't necessarily structure the content in the way that we would structure it. So, like the concept of a back cover copy, one of the most important things that we talk about in terms of the call to action and the next step. So as a digital version of the book, the concept of a back cover is actually more inconvenient because it's right at the end of the document. Someone has to scroll to the very end of a PDF and honestly, probably fewer people are doing that. So there is this disconnect between the essential way that we want to deliver them. A digital version of the physical book. So that has covers where we'd expect covers. But then the call to action, the thing that we want people to do, the next step, is at the end of the document. So that's one thing that's definitely worth bearing in mind, is that that digital delivery of something in a book format that's ticking all of the right boxes. But the call to action, if you leave that at the very last page and don't do anything else to balance that out, then that can be somewhat problematic. Now, the way that we get around that is to understand how people are downloading it, what the context is in which we're delivering it, and make sure that the call to action is. Is delivered in another way. So the easiest option, the easiest example, obviously is just making sure that the next step, or a simple next step or one of the next steps that you have on the back cover is included in the COVID email that you send to them, or you structure a separate. Potentially a separate document. Although I don't think I'm just kind of popped into my head as we Were talking, I was going to say structure another document that has an additional page in there that includes the call to action a little bit earlier in the process than the back page. But thinking about that, the only place that would make sense was including it kind of as a cover letter in the PDF before the front cover. And that doesn't really work either because that kind of breaks the whole model. That takes away from the fact that the first page you want them to see is the COVID that shiniest looking part of it. But even that going through that as a thought exercise is good because I can imagine that that thought has entered other people's minds as a way to tick the box of including the next steps in a document. So thinking about it, the better way of doing it is to make sure that it is included in the email, that the email follow up sequence reinforces or reminds people those next steps they can take and not do anything to lessen the impact of the book file itself. Knowing that in a digital sense more so probably than a physical sense, people are less likely to read all of it again. They're more likely to get as far as the COVID and the table of contents and potentially skip to the end, particularly if they see a chapter called Next Steps that stands out in the PDF document. It's super interesting. I mean, Thinking about it without the specifics of the examples, it's easy to throw up a couple of things which kind of break down slightly in the devils in the details always. But I think conceptually, understanding that there are two different ways that things can be used, two different delivery mechanisms. Those delivery mechanisms have different priorities. So by picking the one, thinking about the beyond the book stage of how you intend to use it first, at least you can get out of the gate and in the first month take the steps that will get some excitement out there. It will lean on the benefit of this thing being new and the excitement around that, picking one of them and just going 100% down that one particular campaign, whether it's physical or digital, don't worry too much about that. It's more about executing and then within that execution, understanding what the kind of nuances are of each, where the benefits and not so much the pitfalls, but the things to be aware of in one approach versus the other, thinking about all of that as the process is going through. We've said it before, if you're working with us, most of your effort is in the early stage in actually creating the content or working with us as we record the content. And then there's a couple of weeks of effort where we take it and do all of the product production stage. So in that time, rather than kind of switching off and not thinking about it at all, think about, okay, I know this is, this asset is coming to life in, in the next few weeks to month. How can I be best positioned in order to make the most of it and hit the ground running? Super opportunity to kind of keep that momentum. And then thinking about, okay, if I'm going to use it in, in a physical sense versus a digital sense, then what does that mean? What, what things can I put in place to.

Guest: You know, that's a good point because I think a lot of times people, they have the idea of what they think they want to do with the book or maybe they, I think the standard response is I'm going to give it to potential clients, you know, and that, that's, that's as far as people know.

Guest: Right.

Guest: And, and, and again, they start the process and then we do our thing. And I think people tend to just kind of forget about it until we happen to reach out. And then all of a sudden the book is finished and we get that, okay, well how do I, what do I do now? You know, we get a lot of that, like, what should I do? Do you have any ideas? Can you help me? You know, that kind of thing. Should I put it on social media? All those questions, you know, but really that's a great time because they've recorded the content, they really know what the actual message is versus the idea of the message and, and what they thought the message might be. And so it's a great time to really just start thinking about that, getting that plan in place. And yeah, so I think you and I are going to talk about that separately because that is something that has been brought up so many times. You know, that's a good point.

Guest: And we've done work and we work with people individually after the fact to kind of, okay, now it's done. Let's think about X, Y and Z. Or we've got say, a field guide that we share with customers about how to use it. Now it's complete. But that's a great insight that I think you've just identified and we can take away from this. Is that ready for production stage? Once their work is done, the COVID signed off, now they're kind of waiting. I think you're right. We can identify some things that we can do in that period to help them. Okay, you've got three weeks now. Here's some exercises to get some momentum building ready to go once it lands.

Guest: Yeah, yeah, I think that definitely something to look at.

Guest: Fantastic. Well, talking about when things land, I better go and walk. I've wandered as far away from my gate, so I better go and double check. There's definitely still a pain for me to get onto.

Guest: You should do that. You should do that.

Guest: All right.

Guest: Well, that was good, I think. And I think we've got some other ideas now to talk about here in the future.

Guest: Yeah, for sure. And as you listen to this, if you've got any questions or ideas or things that you want to talk to us about or that we can address on a future podcast, then just reach out to us. Either support 90 Minute Books or hello at 90 Minute Books. And then we'll either feedback individually or be a subject that we can cover on an upcoming show. I mentioned the book Belief link scorecard, a couple of of things as often in the podcast. So if you haven't yet completed that yourself, head over to bookblueprintscore.com and then you can go through each of these eight mindsets. And today we will talk about the eighth one. This beyond the book idea, but that will help kind of formalize and crystallise some ideas for yourself on how you can use it. And last but not least, as always, we're adamant that the quickest way to get this done is to work with us. So if that's something you're interested in, then either head over to the get started page on 90 Minute Books or drop us an email to support at 90 Minute Books and we'll be able to help and answer any questions.

Guest: Pretty good.

Guest: Alrighty. So with that, thank you as always, Betsy. Thanks for your time.

Guest: Absolutely. Safe travels to you.

Guest: Fantastic. Thank you. Thanks everyone for listening and we will catch you in the next one.