Many authors are concerned with how cheaply they can publish. There is nothing wrong with wanting to save money, but here at Scribe, we cater to authors who have other careers. People like doctors, CEOs, consultants, lawyers, wealth managers, and other high-level professionals who are using their book as a credential to increase their authority, raise their visibility, and be a legacy piece for their career.
For them, they cannot afford to do their book cheaply, because if they do, it will make them look bad. They want to save money, yes, but never at the expense of putting out a poor product with their name on it.
If this is a concern, then before you can determine how much it costs to publish a book, there are two questions you must first answer:
1. What is the value of your time? 2. How professional do you want the book to be?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVTSLeAwvJE
Opportunity cost is a concept from microeconomics which says that every action has not just a direct cost to it, but also a cost in terms of the opportunity lost, and you must factor both in when calculating the total cost.
Let’s stay with book publishing for an example. If you have a retail job that pays $10 an hour, then the opportunity cost of your time is $10 an hour.
But if you have a career that pays you $250,000 a year, given a normal 40-hour work week, you make $125 an hour. That is the opportunity cost of your time.
This difference fundamentally changes the calculation for the true book publishing cost. For the sake of example, let’s say you have two options to publish your book. You can do everything related to publishing your book yourself over the course of 100 hours of work, or you can pay someone else to do it for $10,000, and spend no time working on it.
For the person making $10 an hour, the choice is clear: 100 hours of work is worth $1,000 to them, which is much cheaper than paying $10,000 to someone else. They should do it themselves.
For the person making $250k a year ($125/hr), they should pay $10k. For them, 100 hours of work is worth $12,500, so they actually save $2,500 by hiring someone at $10k.
Opportunity cost can be tricky to calculate if you are looking to be precise, but fairly simple to ballpark. The point is not to have exact numbers, but to understand the value of you time, and to understand that you should, as a rule, spend your time where you create the most value for yourself.
The fact is, readers will judge your book. And not just the book; they will judge you as a person based on the quality of your book. This is one of those unpleasant but true facts of life. We all say “you shouldn’t judge a book based on the cover,” but we all do. The more you accept this fact and then adapt to it, the better your book—and thus your career—will be.
When evaluating cost, the metric a professional should be using is quality. How can you get high quality at a low cost, NOT how can you get the lowest cost.To help you see this, as I explain each publishing stage and the cost, I’ll rank the price ranges for each tier: Low quality, Acceptable, High Quality, Best Possible.
It’s not necessary to pay for Best Possible every time, or even for High Quality. Sometimes acceptable is good enough. The key is knowing where and when to save money, and where to spend it, to make sure you get the highest leverage for your money.
The question here is do you need help, and if so, what kind of help do you want? If you want ghostwriting, that will range from $40k to $100k+. If you want a service more like Scribe Professional turn-key service, it’s $48k. If you want something where you do the typing, but get professional guidance, there is this for only $24k.
If you want a writing coach, you can find those as well, and they range from a few hundred to tens of thousands. There are tons of books that can help you, and online courses to take, all of which vary in price from free to several thousand. And of course, you can sit down to write it yourself without any help from anyone.
Of all aspects of publishing a book, this is hardest to cost out because it’s so personal. Furthermore, this is one area where price does NOT always equal quality. I am going to leave this without price reference, but know that there IS ALWAYS a cost here, even if it’s just the opportunity cost of your time.
Low Quality: n/a Acceptable: n/a High Quality: n/a Best Possible: n/a
For the purpose of this pricing, we will assume we’re talking about a full content edit, which is what most authors need after writing the rough draft of their manuscript.
Low Quality: Less than $1k Acceptable: $2k–$4k High Quality: $5k–$10k Best Possible: $15k+
That’s why we recommend at least TWO different copy editors review your work. The prices below reflect only one, so double whatever it is you use.Copy editing costs are highly variable, but these totals below reflect the total for hourly pay for a 35k-word book.
Low Quality: $300 ($20 hour) Acceptable: $450 ($30 hour) High Quality: $600 ($40) Best Possible: $750 ($50 hour)
Low Quality: $5 - $25 Acceptable: $25 - $75 High Quality: $75 - $100 Best Possible: $150 - $300
Low Quality: $0 - $99 Acceptable: $100 - $300 High Quality: $350 - $1,000 Best Possible: $1,500+
Low Quality: $100 - $150 Acceptable: $200 - $500 High Quality: $750 - $1,500 Best Possible: $2,000+
Low Quality: $0 - $500 (DIY software like Vellum is in the middle of this range) Acceptable: $750 - $1,000 High Quality: $1,500 Best Possible: $2,500+
In print on demand, the printing costs for orders are pulled out of the royalties, so there is no upfront publishing cost.Thus, anything you spend depends on the format. CreateSpace and KDP charge nothing to set up paperbacks. IngramSpark charges $49 for physical book (HC or paperback) setup, and $25 for eBook setup. The quality for IngramSpark tends to about the same as CreateSpace.
Low Quality: n/a Acceptable: $0 and/or $25–$74 High Quality: n/a Best Possible: n/a
It’s almost impossible to quote a price here without knowing the quantity of books you’ll be ordering. For example, 1,000 books will usually cost you between $5 and $7 apiece, whereas if you print 5,000, the price goes down to around $3, and more than 10,000, the price often drops below $2.
Furthermore, not everyone needs a hardcover. For this reason, we cannot really include this in the cost of publishing, but know that if you want high-quality hardcovers, then you will have to spend money on printing the books.
Low Quality: n/a Acceptable: n/a High Quality: n/a Best Possible: n/a
The ISBN is the 13-digit number above the barcode at the back of your book, it tells bookstores and libraries all the important info about your book.
If you use a free ISBN assigned to you by CreateSpace or IngramSpark, there are downsides. First off, your book looks more self-published. Second, you’ll limit your chances of a bookstore carrying your own book, as many won’t take books from CreateSpace especially.
You do not have to get your own ISBN, but doing so will make you look more legit.Low Quality: Free Acceptable: $85–$99 High Quality: $125 Best Possible: $125
Again, this is not a true total cost, because writing help and hardcover publishing is not included, but I hope this at least helps you understand what ranges you’re looking at when considering publishing costs.