Have you ever wondered which comes first, the paperback or the kindle?

I decided to ask a few Indie authors I know and see what they do. Then I’ll let you know what I do.

Erika Mathews:
Paperback, because paperback is the hardest to get all the sections/headers/footers/page numbers/TOC/etc. just right. Plus I love doing all the final edits/proofread in paperback formatting – it’s prettier and I can see exactly how it will look in print.
Then I simply duplicate the doc, delete the headers/footers/etc, change all the fonts to something generic, add links in the back matter if needed, and upload to kindle. 🙂

Angie Thompson:
I usually end up working on them at the same time. If one of them is going to be finished first, it’ll probably be the ebook file, just because the file I write and edit it in is already formatted for the ebook, just missing the front matter. But by the time I put that in, I’ve usually copied everything over to a print file as well. So I guess I start with the ebook file, but I work on them simultaneously for the most part.

Sarah Holman:
I do a Kindle first because I love being able to have a pre-order deal and most of my readers buy only the Kindle version anyway.

P.D. Atkerson:
Personally, I like to use KDP’s pre-order for kindle to set a date. But usually the paperback comes out first, because they don’t have a pre-order for paperback yet, and I like to make sure there aren’t any problems with uploading the book before the date I picked for the release.

Kellyn Roth:
I chose to do both paperback and Kindle simultaneously when I first published because when I hopped onto CreateSpace (what is now Kindle Direct Publishing), they offered me both options, and I decided to do both. However, I probably wouldn’t have done Kindle back then unless prompted because I was unfamiliar with ebooks and would’ve wanted to hold my novel in my own hands! Now Kindle is probably 80% of my sales … I prefer paperback, though!

Victoria Lynn:
I personally do paperback and kindle at the same time with the same day release. That may change in the future. Publishing in hard copy is just as easy as kindle these days, so it is an added bonus for the population that will only buy hard copy to have the opportunity for both. I honestly feel that if you are putting the time and work into publishing in the first place, going the extra mile and offering in both avenues at once will increase your sales and give you more longevity. 

And finally me.

Unless I am just publishing a short story as just a kindle version, I will format the paperback first because, like Erika, I would rather proof a paperback version. Once it’s been proofed and any corrections made, I’ll quickly save my paperback as a kindle version (love that Save As option!), link my chapters to my TOC, and publish both paperback and kindle at the same time. This gives my readers the ability to get either the paperback or the kindle. Or both. Now and then I will set up a pre-order for a kindle book, but since I almost never know when a book is coming out, that doesn’t happen often.

Was this what you expected? Do you tend to buy paperbacks or kindles? Or are you someone who gets both? If you are a published author, what do you do?