The BS-Free Guide to Self-Publishing — Part Three — One Honest Indie

Starting from where we last left off, here’s Part Three! Pricing books and distribution through retailers.

Setting your book’s price

If you’re self-publishing under your own trade name, you’re entirely responsible for setting your book’s suggested retail price. This involves more than just looking at what other authors are charging for their books and setting your price somewhere in the same neighborhood. First, you need to know how much it costs to produce a copy of the book. (IngramSpark provides a formula for determining this.) Once you’ve determined your production cost per book, consider the market price for books similar to yours, then factor in a wholesale discount of 55–60%. The difference between the discounted price and the cost of the book is your profit per sale. Therefore, make sure the discounted price ends up being higher than the production cost of one copy of your book.

Or to put in terms of an equation:

Wholesale price (55–60% of suggested retail price) — Cost of producing book = author’s profit

You can set the wholesale discount lower if you wish. However, if you have any interest in having bookstores carry your work, you should set it for at least 55%, according to one bookseller I inquired with. Bookstores…