Whether you’re self-publishing or hoping for a traditional book contract, it’s essential that you understand the costs associated with publishing a book. But so much of publishing happens behind closed doors. This can make it nearly impossible to really understand the costs associated with getting your book out.
I’ve put together the top 8 components you must account for, whether you’re self-publishing or attempting to understand the ways publishers approach books.
How Do Traditional Publishers Calculate the Value of a Book?
Before we dive in, I want to explain my approach. Self-publishing has made authorship so much more accessible, and that’s absolutely amazing. But one thing that we often forget is that publishers do things for a reason. And one of the reasons they are so selective is that they know how expensive publishing can get.
That means they make their decisions very carefully.
If we can take some of their process and use it for all books—traditional and self-published alike—we can make much smarter decisions about how to get our own books out there.
So let’s start by thinking about how presses think about your book’s value.
Any time an acquisitions editor finds a book that they want to publish, they have to jump through a number of hoops. They have to take it to their managing editor for approval. They may need to take it to their editorial board. They’ll have to take it to their marketing department. Essentially, they have to get several other people to sign off saying that they believe the book will sell.
To make their case, they prepare a P&L, or a Profit and Loss statement.
If you’re in business, you’ve probably created these (or at least seen them!), because P&Ls are very common in the business world. They list all of the income and expense a business has had, allowing investors, banks, and other interested parties to get a sense of whether a business is actually profitable.
Since, for publishers, books are business, a P&L makes perfect sense as a way to determine which books will be a good investment and which won’t make their money back.
You’ll see a sample book P&L in this post, and you can download it here. I’ll use it to guide this discussion.
Anatomy of a Book P&L Statement
The header of a book P&L includes the book’s basic metadata: title, author, list price, trim size (the physical measurements of your book), and page count.
Many of these elements play a role in the production costs of a book—the costs to actually print and distribute it—so those are listed at the top to give context to the rest of the document.
Below those basic pieces of info, you’ll see the royalty rate. Here, I listed 7.5% for paperback, which is fairly standard for a traditional contract. EBook royalties vary more, and can range from 10-25%.
And then, we get into the costs that matter for every type of publishing, from the biggest traditional presses to the individual who is publishing their first book. Here are the 8 areas you need to keep in mind from the very beginning of your publishing process.
Book Coaching and/or Developmental Editing
Regardless of whether you plan to publish traditionally or self-publish, I highly recommend you seek out a book coach and/or developmental editor—these are professionals who can help make sure you have the most enjoyable and efficient experience of getting a solid draft on paper.
I find that sometimes authors resist this investment—they think they’ll just write the book then hire a line editor. The problem is that editing costs vary wildly, typically based on the strength of the initial manuscript.
In other words, skipping on book coaching or developmental editing probably won’t save you money. You’ll just have to pay more on the back end to fix the mistakes a coach could have caught.
So I highly recommend investing in a book coach upfront.
To give some sense of range, most book coaches will charge you $1,000-$2,000 per month, and you’ll probably need to work with them for at least six months to see results.
If you choose to use developmental editors instead, you’ll have to get your manuscript written first, then expect to pay around $2,500-$3,500 per round of editing and up.
If you use a book coach, you probably won’t need a developmental editor. But you might end up needing a book coach after you get feedback from your developmental editor, depending on how extensive the revisions are.
Copyediting and Proofreading
The second thing you need to think about is copy editing and proofreading.
This is an area that is crucially important for traditional and self-publishers—do not skimp on these areas!
A good copy editor is magical, truly. We have folks on our staff who can polish up any book they get their hands on. But the more work the book needs, the more it’s going to cost.
For a book written by a professional writer (meaning that the structure and writing are both strong), expect to pay around $2,000 for copyediting. You’ll pay much, much more if the manuscript is in bad shape and needs to be rewritten. In both cases, it’s absolutely worth paying for the best you can afford (although it’s infinitely better if you can hire someone to help you develop the manuscript up front—you’ll probably end up paying less, plus the result will be much better!).
Why exactly are copyeditors so valuable? Copyeditors tighten up your language at the line level. They point out any inconsistencies. They talk to you about structure. They fact-check your work. They are the last line of defense against a weak manuscript.
After your book has been copyedited, plan to hire a separate proofreader. This is really important—nobody can copyedit and proofread simultaneously. The two tasks use different parts of the brain. So plan to hire a separate person to do the proofreading, just to make sure that everything is as professional as possible.
Proofreaders are the least expensive professionals on this list. You can expect to spend around $1,500 for a proofread of a full manuscript.
Design
The third thing that you need to consider is your design.
The expenses under this umbrella vary depending on what you need.
If you want to use original or licensed artwork, you’ll need to commission an artist or, at the very least, pay an artist for reprint rights. This can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands, or, if your book doesn’t need original art (aside from word art or free-to-use images), you might be able to skip this part.
What you won’t be able to skip, of course, is your cover design. Most presses, ours included, have staff designers for cover and interior layout. But if you’re self-publishing, you’ll need to hire a freelancer. Expect to pay $2,000 or $3,000 for your cover design.
Self-publishing authors may be able to do their own interior layout design using an affordable program like Vellum. The cost to download this program is $250, and you can use it for as many books as you like for that one-time fee.
If your book is more complicated and you need specialty layout, the sky’s the limit. This could cost you thousands of dollars to hire a freelancer, which is the reason many presses want you to limit the number of images and figures in your book—the more stuff you want to include, the more complicated (and expensive) your interior layout will be.
Registration
The fourth element—and the element I find the most overlooked—is your registration. If you’ve ever searched for an ISBN, say for a college textbook you wanted to find used, you’ve probably see ISBNs. These numbers are just the unique, individual registration number for any book.
These can be purchased for a pretty affordable price through a company called Bowker. If you’re self-publishing, you’ll need to purchase a separate identifier for each format (paperback, eBook, hardcover, audio, etc), but they’re less than $100 each (and if you’re publishing multiple books or a single book in many formats, you can buy multiples and get a package discount). I strongly recommend you purchase your own ISBN rather than using a free number from Kindle Direct or IngramSpark—this gives you total reassurance that your book is yours, because you will own the registration from start to finish.
If you’re working with a press, they have probably bought a package of ISBNs that they can just assign to your book.
Either way, this is a cost you cannot skip, so it pays to keep it in mind from the beginning.
Printing Costs
The fifth thing you need to think about is the printing costs.
If you’re publishing traditionally, your press will probably order an initial print run. This means they’ll pay for a bulk order of books and store them for sale in their warehouse.
Most self-publishing authors don’t have a warehouse, which typically means using Print-on-Demand (or POD). POD simply means that books are printed as they’re purchased, one at a time.
As with most industries, it’s less expensive to buy in bulk. Typically, if you’re ordering a bulk print run, you can get your per-book price down to around $2.
However, with POD, expect each book to cost somewhere in the range of $6-8, depending on a variety of factors.
Distribution
Self-publishing authors, rejoice! You don’t have to worry about this, thanks to IngramSpark and Kindle Direct Publishing. The cost to ship your book to your eager fans is included in the POD costs.
Traditional publishers have to pay for distribution costs, including warehousing (as I mentioned above), shipping, insurance, and other overhead costs.
Marketing
Number six is marketing.
In my experience, this is the most common area of disappointment among traditionally published authors. Thanks to Hollywood, many people assume that traditional publishers jet-set their authors around the country for an in-person book tour on the press’s dime.
This is so incredibly uncommon that, unless you live in the same house with the 44th President of the United States, you should not expect anything like this.
Instead, presses will usually spend their money listing your book in bookstore and library catalogues, doing giveaways, or submitting the book for awards. Often, authors don’t see these kinds of strategies, because they’re industry-focused as opposed to reader focused, but they’re important. You can typically replicate these strategies for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. If you want to take this approach, it’s well worth your money to join the Independent Book Publishers Association, as you’ll get access to many industry channels and cooperative strategies, often at a discounted rate.
But many authors also want to supplement the presses efforts with additional marketing strategies including social media, paid influencer marketing, or live and online events. Again, you can invest any amount you’d like into a strategy like this, but be sure to plan for it upfront!
You may also choose to hire a publicist to pitch them for media appearances. Doing so can be pricey, but it can also really help get the word out about your book. Expect to spend between $5,000 and $20,000 per month with a minimum commitment of 3-4 months. If you’re considering this expense, be sure to balance your investment with your potential return—an author with a small, niche audience probably won’t recoup a $60,000 publicity investment on top of the other publishing expenses you’ll need to include!
You may also be able to DIY more book publicity strategies than you think. We talk a lot about simple book marketing strategies, and that kind of coaching is included in all of our book coaching programs.
Returns
While this category doesn’t fit neatly into the theme of “costs,” it’s crucial to keep in mind as you’re thinking about your potential return on investment for your book (and even more so if you’re trying to wrap your head around your publisher’s way of thinking!).
Almost every author I talk to really wants their book to be available in physical bookstores. While that won’t boost your sales as much as you might think (most people don’t browse bookstores these days, unfortunately), I completely get the lure of having your book in a store. There’s just something so magical about going to a bookstore and seeing your title on the shelf.
But keep in mind that bookstores will rarely, if ever, buy your book unless you give them a wholesale price, usually 55%. And they will require you to accept returns.
This is such a bummer because, I know, we all want to believe that our books are going to sell like hotcakes. In truth, a lot of books end up just sitting on bookstore shelves, taking up space that could go to another author (maybe you!). Unlike Amazon, bookstores do not have unlimited space to carry inventory. They need to know that the books they order are either going to sell or they’re going to be able to get their money back for them, and that’s why we have returns on our list of profit and loss.
Expect to see some returns after six months or so—those aren’t books that people bought and read, but rather books that nobody bought.
For traditionally published authors, this will come back out of your royalties (or your press will hold them in anticipation of potential returns). For self-published authors, be sure you anticipate those losses, because they’re probably coming.
When that happens, try to look on the bright side. Those bookstores believed in your book, they hoped it was going to sell, and they stocked it. But at the end of the day, they simply had to make room for new books. It’s nothing against you personally. It happens to everyone. Just be ready for it!
Dollars and Cents
I urge every author, first time or repeat, to have a clear goal in mind when you set out to publish. Why are you writing this book?
Yes, of course, we would all love to see amazing sales figures. Not only is the money nice, but great sales also means that our work is getting into people’s hands. Who wouldn’t want that, especially after spending so much money and time along the way?
“You can expect to spend around $1,500 for a proofread of a full manuscript.”
But the truth is, publishing a book is expensive. It may take years to recoup your investment. And you may not recoup it at all.
If you have people you want your book to help—if you genuinely need to share your story because you want to lift others up—you will see a return on that investment. It may not come in the form of money. It may come in the form of people’s praise. It may come in the form of people telling you how you changed their perspectives. It may come in the form of new clients in your business or new opportunities in your career.
If you truly set out to help people with your book, you will change people’s lives. It’s really hard to put dollars and cents to that, and I don’t think we should. As you’re thinking about all the factors that make publishing so expensive, I know it can be really frustrating to add up all the costs. But trust me, if you can find a way to make it work, either through crowdfunding, through getting organizational sponsorship or, yes, digging into your own pocket, I promise, if you have your motives in the right place—if you have the goals in place for who you want to help—you’ll be rewarded every single time.
The video format of this post can be found here.
