I'm just starting to spread my wings in to researching the self publishing POD environment. The titan of IngramSpark leaps out to me being most attractive so far. I have used their publisher compensation calculator to get a general feel for how much money I would get per book sold. I have set the book as follows... a £12.99, 270 paged colour 5.5" 8.5". I've set the wholesale discount to 40%, albeit a bit unsure if that is a good figure to go with. It's looking like I'd be getting around £1.99 per book sold. Is this normal? What are the 'average' rates that publishers make per book sold? Any help, much appreciated as always. Cheers A.
Well, this company isn't a publisher in the accepted sense of the word. Thought I'd give you the heads up because if you search for figures for 'publishers', you won't get the right info. And they're going to be charging you (well, your readers) £11 to print a book? That doesn't sound like a good deal to me but then I don't know what IS a good deal for print on demand!
Doing this self published, I would buy some ISBNs and make my own publishing house, so in a sense I think this publisher compensation calculator works for how I am going to be selling the book. I think they charge about £5.50 for the print. The other £5.50 or so goes toward the 40% discount that is supposedly commonplace in the market to get your book out there! It would be great to have a vague idea on if this is commonplace or if I could somehow do this a better way...
I'm confused about the "wholesale" discount, because I can't imagine anywhere that buys POD books wholesale?
You can wholesale to bookstores, I would think. There are a couple here that will shelve self-published books by local authors, including the local Barnes and Noble.
Going with Createspace, you can get your ISBNs for free, or alternatively buy one through Gawker that is not Amazon-specific. I chose both for each of my two books, one free and one $100. They will also get you an optional US Library of Congress Control Number for $25. Amazon's pricing is production cost + 40% of purchase price, so you can set your breakeven point at production cost/0.60. So for example, one of my books has a $7.50 production cost (page count and paper options), so my breakeven point is $12.50. I priced it at $14.99. so my royalty is 14.99*.60-$7.50=$1.50. You can take expanded distribution through Amazon which will get you to Ingram and B & N catalogs (not shelves) but that will run up you minimum price, I think to $18.99 so the third parties can get their cut. However, sales on Amazon still go through the same calculus, so you simply get bigger royalties ($3.90) from the higher minimum price for Amazon sales. I haven't chosen that option yet.
Trad publishers and self publishers are two different worlds. You may have to give 55% or more if you want others to distribute your book for you. Like Dan Poynter said: Bookstores are a lousy place to sell books. You may do better distributing yourself and giving small discounts that go up based on volume BOUGHT ; and never use consignment like bookstores want, as returns will eat you alive. Don't forget all your sunk expenses, plus taxes, and marketing, yada yada. Getting that little will mean you may well lose money over all. And don't even worry about all the time it took you to get that book out there.
Depends on the book size, greediness of the printer, and the binding. Other items also impact the cost. Who does fulfillment, marketing, etc.
If a bookstore orders the book they will want 40%. The distributor will want their slice. So now up to 55% and rising. Shipping handling postage and returns are also a factor.
Bookstores are a lousy place to sell books. The returns will eat you alive. RIP Dan Poynter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Poynter
They only order when a customer requests it. Some will stock them if pushed by distributors marketing but return them unsold and beat up.
The volume is usually 1-2. Only because some sales rep pushed the book. Almost always returned unsold and beat up.
