Many options in the custom self-publishing world provide you with the unique freedom to set your own retail cover price. Authors should have the control set their own trade discount and royalty they want to early in the publishing process. In fact, some publisher’s websites even provide features that automatically calculate the necessary pricing information for you based on your book details right away.
That dynamic pricing calculation should also include your author copy base price—the price you can purchase your book at. This is one detail to consider when selecting your publisher. Upon close look you may notice that some publishers artificially inflate a book’s retail price and then offering to sell copies to the author for a “discount.” Strangely, this scheme adopted by so many POD publishers is similar to what you’d find with off-set printers—providing a “bulk discount” only if the author orders a large number of books all at once. That defeats one of the biggest advantages of print-on-demand. All they have really done is inflated the low-quantity costs enough to allow a discount on higher quantities. No wonder their retail prices can be so high.
Look for a publisher that offers the pricing flexibility to allow your book to retail at the best competitive rates possible, while also providing you the option to purchase your book at those below wholesales costs in low quantities to sell on your own.
Have fun and keep writing!
Sincerely,
Karl Schroeder
Self Publishing Advisor 