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So, I am a self-published author, and I wanted to diversify away from the #Amazon ecosystem for some time. However, I am hitting a snag with the Print on Demand options.
My paperback books are sold in a 6"x9" format, which is a standard format for paperbacks. With Amazon KDP, I sell my books for a standard price of $17.99, and I get about 5$ in royalties for each paperback sold.
Now I've used online calculators to calculate printing prices for a 384 page book on assorted Print on Demand platforms (this is the length of my current manuscript).
With Amazon KDP, I get the usual $5.19 in revenues.
With OneBookShelf (a platform that is primarily for #TTRPG, but which also sells fiction) I get US printing costs of $11.73, which should leave me revenues of about 4$. Still acceptable.
However, the biggest "alternative" Print on Demand platform is Draft2Digital, and there I would only get revenues of $1.11. Which is too low for my tastes.
So if I want to keep decent revenues for my print books, my options are:
- Increase the prices for my paperbacks. And I would have increase the price all the way to $24.49 if I want to get at least $4 in royalties.
- Skip Draft2Digital as a print publishing platform, and stick to Amazon KDP and OneBookShelf - although the latter only prints in the USA and the UK, which means customers in other countries will have to have to pay extra for shipping.
What are your thoughts what I should do? And what are some other Print on Demand platforms I should look into?
#amwriting #publishing
Replies (3)
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@juergen_hubert@mementomori.social D2D POD is an IngramSpark reseller. Go direct to Ingram, save yourself D2D's cut.
But prices are increasing everywhere. I'm going to have to do a sweeping price increase of all my titles soon, for similar reasons.
I also use BookVault, particularly for direct sales. They are working hard to become the go-to POD printer, and I think they'll succeed.
Open ##5013296
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@juergen_hubert@mementomori.social I have bought a book from @BartoszMilewski@mathstodon.xyz on Blurb. Worked well for me, but maybe Bartosz has some info on the profitability (or usability) of it?
Open ##5318482
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@juergen_hubert@mementomori.social I use Ingram Spark (which I believe is who D2D uses; the small royalty will be due to them taking their middleman cut) but I never compared the price to Amazon because I knew I would never use Amazon.
There is another place that would have been viable if I didn’t live in Australia but I can’t remember the name of it…I’ll see if it comes to me and let you know if it does
Open ##5318499