Self Publishing: Setting Your Paperback Book Price

Use the following tools to determine how much it's going to cost to print your book so you can properly price your book and make money.

I recently realized that when I priced my first book I was somewhat lucky to price it at a price point where I could still make money on both Amazon KDP and IngramSpark. As I was listing the second book in my middle grade series SOMNIUM I realized that due to the additional page length in my second book I could no longer make money (unless you consider $.07 making money) listing it on IngramSpark.

When I priced my first book I researched similar books based on age range, topic and length and settled on a $7.99 price and this worked out really well. I wanted to have both books priced the same so when I set up the ISBN for book 2 in Bowker I used the same $7.99 price. When I listed my book on Amazon KDP this price was fine and I was still going to make money. Unfortunately, I discovered that in order to make money for book 2 on IngramSpark I would need to price the book at $8.99.

Thankfully it’s easy to update your price on Bowker even after you’ve set it up, so I changed the price there to reflect my new pricing of $8.99 for book 1 and book 2. I left my pricing on Amazon KDP at $7.99 (so basically now it’s discounted from the ISBN price). I also updated book 1 on IngramSpark to $8.99 and listed book 2 also at $8.99.

I probably still would have landed on the $7.99 price for book 1 (not knowing how long book 2 would be). However, going forward I realized that while it’s important to understand competitive pricing, you also need to know how much it’s going to cost to print your book.

Amazon KDP

You can find the Amazon KDP pricing calculator here

Using their equation book 1 costs (at 231 pages)

$.85 + (231 * $.012) = $3.62

You then need to keep in mind that you make 60% on the price of the book minus the printing cost, so

($7.99* .6) - $3.62 = $1.17

And book 2 looks like the following (at 273 pages)

$.85 + (273 * $.012) = $4.13

($7.99* .6) - $4.13 = $.66

IngramSpark

You can find the IngramSpark pricing calculator here

Using their calculator I learned that book 1 costs $4.53 and book 2 costs $5.12. When you list on IngramSpark you select the discount rate that distributers will receive when purchasing your book. IngramSpark recommends 55%. This just wasn’t realistic for me in order to make money, so I have mine set at 35%. IngramSpark makes it clear that setting this lower than 55% means it’s less likely your book will get on any shelves, but you also can’t list it at a loss, so this is another reason to choose your book price wisely.

Using their information this is what my income on Book 1 looks like

($7.99 * .65) - $4.53 = $.66

($8.99 * .65) - $4.53 = $1.31 (with the updated pricing)

When I realized that book 2 was going to make me a measly $.07 a book it just didn’t even feel worth listing it on IngramSpark. But, since I want to get my books out as far and wide as possible, IngramSpark is the best way to help make that happen (aside from Amazon of course). Repricing my book seemed like the next best option.

($7.99 * .65) - $5.12 = $.07

($8.99 * .65) - $5.12 = $.72 (with the updated pricing)