Booklets or Teachers – Which Are Better?

This question has bounced among writers, consumers, marketers, sponsors, and others, both inside and beyond the publishing industry.

You can get a tips booklet done quickly, using minimal time and money. Your booklet can be ready to distribute and/or sell to expand your reach and your bottom line much sooner than a full-length 200-page book. This is true whether focusing on single copies or bulk sales for companies and organizations to use as a promotional tool. The tips booklet then serves as the outline for writing your book.

A tips booklet starts a product line for your business or is a low-priced item to balance out high-end products and services, providing something for everyone.

The booklet is an ideal entry point for people starting to learn about your expertise. As they absorb your information they become ready for more. That’s when your book is often the next step. Or someone may have already mastered the basics and wants more in-depth information now, ready for your book.

There are times the booklet is the perfect solution and times it’s the book. By having both you serve your clients and prospective clients best, while increasing your likelihood of sales. Booklets and books are marketing tools, direct revenue streams, or both, depending on your goals.

Let’s say a company wants to give their employees or clients a thank-you gift. Based on the circumstance, the category of recipients, the available budget, and other variables, there are times the booklet is the best match. In a different moment it’s the book, without question. Yet other events prompt bundling the booklet and book together for even greater value and “wow” factor. Having both the booklet and book available increases the options for you and the buyer.

If you’re concerned that a tips booklet is not enough information to carry the credibility you feel is necessary, think about the first time you started learning a topic that was brand new to you. You had to begin with basics before graduating to more complexity. Yes, you can do that in book chapters, though that can be off-putting or intimidating to the “student.” A booklet with tips and short runs of copy is often more inviting and accessible and brings people into your world who then want more from you beyond the booklet.

There are times a booklet is all that’s needed, where a book would be too much and not useful at all. Imagine a family wanting to follow appropriate religious traditions when someone dies. All they want is tips on exactly what to do and in what sequence. A book with narrative explanations and history about the traditions is not useful to them. It’s not when someone will read an in-depth book like that, no matter how well written by the best grief expert in the world at any price. A tips booklet written by a knowledgeable clergy member and sold in bulk to funeral homes is a perfect match of publication and circumstance. Later the family member may want a book on grief, which is the time for that same funeral home to follow up by giving the family the book. That can all ultimately lead to seeking counseling services from the clergy member, too, and reminding the family about the funeral home that went above and beyond customer service basics in the family’s time of need.

Maybe your goal is to be a best-selling New York Times or Amazon.com author. And you are clear that being an author is a primary title you want attached to your professional identify, for whatever your reasons. That still does not preclude creating one or more tips booklets from your books. Those booklets help sell more of your books, especially when adding something in your booklet like “for more in-depth information about how to have a happier life, you’ll want our book, ‘The Journey Started with a Single Step – Secrets to Improve Your Life.’

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