Pricing

If your book is published by an established commercial publisher, the publisher will have the responsibility to set a price for the book. But if you self publish, that task is yours.

To price a book correctly to maximize sales, you need to know how other similar types of books are priced, as well as the costs of the book, in order to maximize your profits. Beyond these two factors, you must also factor in the discounts required to sell online and in bookstores.

Seek out competitive titles, and make a list of the title, the page count, and the retail price of the book. Consider a price that makes sense based comparing your book’s page count and complexity with the other books in the market.

Here are some typical retail price ranges for softcover books based on page count:

110-175 pages: $13-$16 176-250 pages: $14-$20 251-325 pages: $15-$22 326-400 pages: $16-$25

Add up the costs of producing your book, and divide by the quantity to determine the cost per book. You want to be sure you cover your costs adequately, even with the deep discounts you will see explained below.

Typical printing costs for self-published books depend on the quantity printed and are generally between $2 and $5 a book on quantities from 1,000 to 10,000 copies.

Other hard costs include editorial services, book design, illustrations, proofreading, indexing, permissions, bar code, and cover design. Unfortunately, you can’t include the expense of your time or marketing costs or the book price would be much higher than the market will bear.

Consider where and how you will sell the book to determine the discount you will need to offer for retailers and online sales. If you want to sell to bookstores through a distributor, the typical discount from retail price will be 50 percent to even 60 percent. Consider a typical 30 percent discount for retail sales through Amazon.com.

Tanyab 08:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC) | www.publishing-store.com