How much does it cost for an independent writer to get his or her book published?
Posted on December 27th, 2009 by admin
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I plan on writing a book in the near future and I wanted to know how much would it cost for me to get it published is it as simple as me paying a fee and they send me copies to sell.
I recommend that you read Writer’s Market. Do not self publish or use a vanity press. That costs money.
Join a Writer’s Group and critique others and get used to them critiquing you. Then read the section in Writers Market about submitting a book for publishing.
There is not one simple answer to this question. If utilizing a normal book publishing business, you pay the going rates for printing, binding etc. This could be quite expensive (normally is). Other methods are of course to utilize a smaller printing operation that handles such things as operators manuals and other small run publications that also include such things as binding etc. They usually can give you a reasonable price for a small run printing.
It will also depend on who you go to. Do you have a deal with a publisher or not. If not then may be look into other methods of publishing. Are you marketing this yourself or using a service or the publishers system? Different methods have different costs and results.
When we had our store we printed a manuscript for a new author and also performed proof reading service. We also did a small initial printing on normal size pages which of course used low cost binding methods that provided the author with an initial set of books to sell or give away or send to potential publishers for costing. We also put him in touch with a small printing operation that could handle printing of the book on a time schedule and quantity he desired with the size and type of cover etc he wanted. This book was published (paid for by the author) and a cheap distribution method was used. We do know that some copies are available at local libraries (does not necessarily help with sales but gets the author known).
References :
I recommend that you read Writer’s Market. Do not self publish or use a vanity press. That costs money.
Join a Writer’s Group and critique others and get used to them critiquing you. Then read the section in Writers Market about submitting a book for publishing.
References :
http://www.davidbarrkirtley.com/teenwriter/TeenResources.html
How about free? Vanity presses can cost a lot of money and leave you with a closet full of books for you to sell.. Try going to Amazon.com and navigate to the bottom of the page. Click on Self Publish. That will take you to a page where you can look their publisher, Createspace, and Kindle. Createspace is essentially free, so is Kindle (ebooks). They list your book on Amazon, but they won’t promote it.
References :
I recommend two approaches, based in my experience in publishing two non-fiction books in 2009 – one in print for sale online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble and one an e-book to go out to Kindle and other non-paper publishers and then as an audio.
1. Self-Publishing: After lots of research with POD (Print on Demand) publishers like Lulu,Wordclay and others, I chose Outskirts Press http://www.outskirtspress.com whose pricing starts at a Basic $199. I chose a more expensive package with more support including a press release.They are excellent. I set my own price and can now offer my book You Can Break-Free fast – 3 Simple Steps to Get Unstuck and Attract the Life you Love on my website http://www.breakfreefast.com with a link to Amazon.
2. A free and wonderful option for getting your work published which I have just used for my second (shorter) book Michael Jackson: 5 Healing Lessons to Heal or Save Your Life, is via a site called Smashwords at http://www.smashwords.com Read their Submission Guidelines carefully in order to be included in their Premium Catalogue and distributed widely via Kindle and many other non-traditional ways like iphone. You set your price and get a fair percentage of sale price. It is very exciting. I take my hat off to Mark Coker who founded Smashwords. They also advise on Marketing and audio.
3. Smashwords will even recommend a low-price designer for your cover and to help with the formatting but I uoutsourced it for a low fee at Scriptlance.
Opportunities to publish independently of mainstream publishers have never been better. Good luck and get going writing.
References :
http://www.outskirtspress.com
http://www.breakfreefast.com
http://www.smashwords.com
http://www.scriptlance.com
Yes, it’s that simple – if what you want is vanity publishing. It will cost you a small fortune, nobody will buy your book, and if you claim to be a published author people will laugh at you. That’s what Caryl has done. You’ll notice she doesn’t mention how many copies her book has sold. It’s probably less than twenty.
If you want to be considered a published author, you’ll need to sell your finished book to a traditional publisher. Right now, having not even started writing it, there’s roughly one chance in a million it will happen. If you ever finish the book, that chance goes up to one in a thousand.
References :
There are several publishers that will publish a book for you. These are referred to as vanity presses and they have their pros and cons.
Another possibility is to use a print on demand site such as http://www.cafepress.com. With cafepress you can upload your book, complete with artwork and your own cover on your own "store." The responsibility for publicity is up to you, but if a copy of the book sells, they print it, mail it, bill it and send you a check.
If you upload one item on your store the site is free. If you upload a large number of items on the site, it’s about $5 per month.
What you charge for a book is up to you, but cafepress gets a set fee per page if a cop of the book sells, and any profit you want to make above this is up you.
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