Price

Self publishing through on demand printing has its disadvantages.  The advantage of POD publishing is that your initial investment is relatively low. Its disadvantage is that the cost per book is higher that if you print thousands of books with offset printing.  The problem is aggravated when self publishing companies charge so much that it becomes hard for authors to sell their books competively. Why would anyone pay $29 dollars for a book when similar books are sold at $17 dollars? 

We are not saying it is unethical to charge too much. After all no one forces you to buy overpriced services. However, we think it is not fair that authors should earn less than self publishing companies.

Traditional publishers earn a lot more than the authors. But that is because they invest on the books and not all books are profitable. So there is a risk involved in publishing a book. What are the risks of self publishing companies?  They make you pay for everything. So, why should they make more money than you?  Authors spend months or years writing a book and they also pay for its production. Isn’t it fair that they should make most of the profit? We think so.  

We’d like to help you publish your book at a very low cost, in the hope that you’ll be able to sell many copies. We want to be a partner in your success and make money with you, not from you.

Qualitatively, all print on demand books are the same. There is no workmanship involved in manufacturing POD books. It’s all technology. All POD books are printed with the same machine. Putting the concerns about quality out of your mind, you can now focus on price.

This table compares the cost of a 300 page perfect-bound, soft cover book by several leading self publishing companies for 50, 100 and 200 books sold individually. Look at the red numbers and you’ll see how much it cosst you to do business with them.

(i) iUniverse and Wingspan Press include Global distribution in their packages. Felibri charges $70 for this service.  To compare apple to apple this amount is deducted from their fee. 

(ii) iUniverse gives five free books in this package, this is accounted for.

(iii) There are several extras in this plan that Author House charges for, like, Rapid Release: $500, Google and Amazon Search Programs: $75, Booksellers return program $699, etc. those are included in Felibri’s plans.  

(iv) iUniverse does not disclose the manufacturing cost of the book, but it can be calculated.  For a 300 page soft copy, they suggest a minimum of $21.95 retail price. (If you decide to sell your book for less you have to cut from your own royalty, but if you sell higher you will have to share a good chunk of it with them. You get 20 cents for every dollar that you sell your book over their recommended price).  They pay 36% of the retail price as commission to bookstores, i.e. $7.90.  As the author your royalty will be $2.80. Therefore iUniverse charges $21.95 – 7.90 - 2.80 = 11.25 to manufactur the book.