Self-publishing paperbacks

[psychotick]

Hi Hare,

No I meant per book. CS is POD not print a run of books. I see no reason why I couldn't get the price the book costs from CS and Hence the price I have to sell it through Amazon for, to come down to under twenty bucks US. No reason other than my personal aesthetics that is.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[tinkerdan]

I'm confused because it sounds like I hear two things Amazon POD and createspace and as far as I knew createspace is the POD for Amazon.

Anyway: you can order as many as you want- my understanding is the setup is not free you can have all the tools free to get you there but there is a cost to have the first single copy made for you to check and that goes beyond a per copy price.

Not sure where free might come from. Maybe someone could offer a link for that.

From my two separate examinations of the process I found I would have to pay a fee to have it set and ready to go then anyone that wanted a copy could order it. That's if you want the paper copies of any kind.(this is why I went with xlibris because I could get both trade paper and hard bound and there are 10 HB and 20TP with the service plus at least one review copy (two if they mess up the first one.) it also included editing.)

After the setup fee you only incur anything more if you order copies to sell yourself.

And the digital are free to send and convert, that much is true. Also free on Smashwords.

 

[HareBrain]

To decrease costs further I could have chosen not to publish the book through the additional channels - libraries / book shops etc - instead just sticking to the basic channels - Amazon and CS. This saves a few bucks per book

I assume you mean a few bucks in up-front costs per title published

No I meant per book.

Hi Greg

I'm still confused, sorry. You're saying that to publish through additional channels costs an extra amount per book, but I thought this was covered by the Expanded Distribution option, which is a one-time charge of (in 2012) $25. Are we talking about different things, or has it now changed?

I'm confused because it sounds like I hear two things Amazon POD and createspace and as far as I knew createspace is the POD for Amazon.

That's what I thought.

Not sure where free might come from.

It came from me rounding to the nearest hundred. (Because I figure that's what a bestselling author would do.) Sorry, yes, that wasn't accurate. In fact it might be closer to a hundred anyway, so maybe I was rounding to the nearest thousand. Whoo, that's Stephen King territory!!

 

[Mouse]

I had 'expanded distribution' with Lulu and didn't pay for it. All I paid to have my books published through Lulu was for someone to do my covers (and all three of my artists came from DeviantArt - the most I paid was about £35), and you have to buy a review copy to check for errors. Which cost about a fiver. That was it.

My 80k book was up for sale at £7.49.

 

[psychotick]

Hi Hare,

They changed expanded distribution last year. Now there's no upfront cost to have your books included in these extra channels, but if you sign up to have your books put in them the required price of the book rises by a couple of bucks.

I know this because when they made the expanded distribution channels free I put my books in them, and then had to raise all my prices.

It's quite strange actually. When you look at your sales - say on my $25 monster, if it sells on the basic CS channel I earn something like eight bucks commission. Six bucks on most other Amaon channels. And about a buck fifty if it sell in the expanded distribution - say to libraries.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Ogma]

Hi Greg

I'm still confused, sorry. You're saying that to publish through additional channels costs an extra amount per book, but I thought this was covered by the Expanded Distribution option, which is a one-time charge of (in 2012) $25. Are we talking about different things, or has it now changed?

When you choose expanded distribution on Createspace currently, you are not charged extra money directly but the break-even price of your book (i.e. how much the book costs without including any profit for you) inflates. So for example, the break-even cost for a certain book on Amazon/Createspace without expanded distribution might be $11-12. But that figure could be $17-18 with expanded distribution.

 

[Gareth Lewis]

I'm still confused, sorry. You're saying that to publish through additional channels costs an extra amount per book, but I thought this was covered by the Expanded Distribution option, which is a one-time charge of (in 2012) $25. Are we talking about different things, or has it now changed?

The Expanded Distribution is now (as of last year IIRC) free to enroll the books in, but since it gives a smaller profit than selling through Amazon you may have to increase the price of your book to avoid making a loss on such sales.

I price mine for a low profit margin, so the price isn't too high, and when I enrolled in the Expanded Distribution I had to increase the prices by around 20% (not that it'll make much difference given how few paperback sales I have). On the other hand the Amazon UK and European site prices you set separately from the $, and while they also have a lower profit margin you can keep their prices lower than the Amazon.com prices you've had to raise.


Addressing a few of the other points in this discussion:

Createspace can be free. The requirement that you buy a proof copy was dropped when they offered the digital proof copy you can download. I still get the print copy, as another check, in a different format, can always throw up things you've missed.

Createspace do now offer matte covers. I haven't tried them yet as the last couple of books have been sequels so I kept them the same style as the earlier books.

My longest book is 150k, which at 6' by 9' came out at 528 pages. With Expanded Distribution active I've had to price it at $19.99 (and £11.99).

 

[HareBrain]

Wow, it's like buses -- you wait all day for an answer and then three come along at once!

Thanks very much guys, that's all useful stuff to know.

you can keep their prices lower than the Amazon.com prices you've had to raise.

I'm not sure I got this, though. Why did you have to raise the Amazon.com prices? I understand that you had to raise the prices for the other channels, but isn't this separate from selling through Amazon.com? Or do you have to set the same price regardless?

 

[Gareth Lewis]

I'm not sure I got this, though. Why did you have to raise the Amazon.com prices? I understand that you had to raise the prices for the other channels, but isn't this separate from selling through Amazon.com? Or do you have to set the same price regardless?

You can only set one $ price, which is used for Amazon.com and the Expanded Distribution network. You can set the £ and euros (don't seem to have a key for that) prices separately. It'd make sense for them to also let you set the Amazon.com price separately from the $ price of the Expanded Distribution, but they don't as yet.

 

[tinkerdan]

Okay I think I see now:

If you have everything ready and don't mind doing the work using the online tools then it should be mostly free in createspace.

If you want any copy editing then the price will reach about or above what I've paid for the whole job.

Since I do have completed works that don't require editing this would work for some quick tests on paper back copies.

Professional layout and interior design starts at 199.00 us.

 

[HareBrain]

Createspace do now offer matte covers.

Yes, one arrived yesterday. Quite nice, apart perhaps from the slight rubbery feel.

I'm now a bit confused about paper colour. I had thought CS offered white or cream, and I thought I knew what those looked like from previous POD books I'd bought. But the book that came yesterday had a colour that verged on pale peach . Is this now CS's "cream" or do they actually offer more than two options?