Lifting the Rock on Self-Publishing

I know I talked about this last week, but I wanted to share some of the unsexy - and shocking - numbers behind publishing large print editions of my first series.

Large print books are special animals. They have 16 pt text, smaller margins, no fancy bits like chapter headers, etc. It's all about the words. Which should be a good thing.

And it is. But all those words, typeset at 5 pt larger than usual, take way more pages. And paper is expensive. And printers charge indie authors more than they charge traditional publishers, because we don't order in bulk. Even our bulk isn't bulky enough. 

I've priced my large print paperbacks at $25.99. That seems high, but (a) most sales will be to libraries, and (b) if I charged less, I'd end up literally paying people to buy the books. 

$25.99 is the retail price. The print cost is anywhere from $12.50 to $13.50. Then the printer (not Amazon/KDP because they have a shorter cutoff for page count) makes us set a wholesale price, which is the only way books can be purchased by bookstores. The "suggested" wholesale is 55% - after print costs. You can reduce that down to 40% (or 35% outside the US), but that also reduces the likelihood of the book being ordered.

But since most bookstore purchases are going to be because someone deliberately orders a book, I'm willing to risk it. With a discount of 40%, after print costs, distribution feels, etc., the royalty remaining is $1.76.

Which is less than I make on a regular paperback.

It's not the size of the royalty - I'm okay with a slow and steady build - but that the actual creator of a piece of work gets the smallest cut of money paid for the work.