Corporate e Books - Which kind do you need?

Where do Corporate eBooks fit into your business strategy? 

In our practice, we see three distinctive business use cases for corporate eBooks:

• Promotional eBooks
• Knowledge base eBooks
• Commercial eBooks
  

Promotional Corporate eBooks - A promotional eBook looks and feels a lot like a white paper, except that it is a whole lot more visual, designed to be skimmed, and, ideally, is crafted to fit into your lead generation strategy.
Great examples of promotional eBooks can be found all over the web. We particularly like these from HubSpot and MailChimp.
A really good, targeted eBook is one that is short on words, visually dynamic, and more spatially oriented than the paragraph-after-paragraph of words you’ll find in the average white paper.
Tip: Don’t just click the “Save As eBook” button on your former white paper. Rethink it for multimedia and interaction. That way, your formerly boring (to everyone but you) content will hold your reader’s attention and get you the results you need.
Knowledge base eBooks - Knowledge base eBooks are designed to take a repository of knowledge and make it available to someone while she works in the field. Typically these types of eBook are enhanced with multimedia, as they often contain more interaction than an eBook designed solely for promotional purposes.
Your objective with a knowledge base eBook is to make your field personnel more productive.  Done well, knowledge base eBooks can even save lives, which is why you see companies like Boeing transitioning away from paper-based “flight kits” — which pilots used to lug into the cockpit by the pound — toward putting all such knowledge onto iPads.
The goal with knowledge-based eBooks is to make knowledge available “at your fingertips” — a concept Bill Gates spoke about way back in 2000. Well folks, we can now actually deliver on that concept.
Commercial eBooks. The final category refers to eBooks designed for commercial distribution. The majority of commercial eBooks are self-published. Why, you ask? Typically, when a publisher such as O’Reilly, Packt, or Wiley gets involved, they handle the eBook production as part of their overall package of services.  However, if your technology is more specialized, Wiley may decline the opportunity to publish “______ for Dummies” (insert your technology in the blank), leaving self-publishing as the only viable option. Another reason clients decide to self-publish is to emphasize thought leadership. A third reason is for branding purposes. Be sure and brand the e Book with your companies name.

What's required to create a compelling Corporate eBook?

To create a compelling Corporate eBook, start with strategy. Figure out the business model for your Corporate eBook — most likely, it will fit into one of the three scenarios we described above.
Once you have determined that an Corporate eBook is the way to go, you need to focus on having it created.
Back in the day, when you needed long-form content you typically turned to a writer to help you create it. Nowadays, we find it takes a village to create an eBook. In addition to copywriting skills, you need people on the team who understand the front-end and back-end technologies, illustration, motion graphics and/or application design, and the ins and outs of the specific devices used to deliver your eBook to the world.
Distribution is a little different than it was last generation so to speak. Today there are various means of distribution such as the iBook store and several more. Each requires a different skill set say like iBook vs. Kindle. Why? Because the operating systems on these devices are fundamentally different. While you can adapt the content to fit both, to take advantage of cutting-edge interactivity features, you often will need to write code that is specific to the device itself. The good news is that you can delegate distribution to someone else the way the web is set up today. There are many major companies out there that will distribute your companies e book on a percentage basis or some other arraingment agreed.
What we find works best is to put a strong project manager at the center of our eBook projects. The project manager is someone who understands the content strategy and the eBook development process, and can also provide leadership to the rest of the team. We look for project managers who are astute about technology, have a deep understanding of the subject area at hand (or can develop it quickly), and understand the value of letting go of words.
Letting go of words means just what it says. Often we find that a photo, illustration, or video persuades much more so than words. We look for writers who understand this shift (a picture is worth a thousand…) to put at the writing helm of our eBook projects. Also helpful is a basic understanding of human interface design, the science of persuasion, and how interactivity can enhance understanding and knowledge retention.

What are you waiting for?

So, now you know about the three different use cases for Corporate eBooks with limitless potential within each. You also can see from here where each type of Corporate eBook could possibly fit into your companies overall strategic objective. Now you know exactly what to expect from each type of Corporate eBook. And you know how to get started staffing your project. Perhaps it is time to revisit your overall content strategy and see where you can use eBooks to enhance the experience your customers have interacting with your content. Go on, it’s easy to jump in!