Self-Publishing – Page 114 – Self Publishing Advisor

Self-publishing Book Pricing and Trade Discount

Like many you’re probably considering the upfront costs advertised by the various self-publishing options available. Pricing is a critical step in self-publishing, and goes much deeper that how much it costs to simply have your book published. Just as writers consider the cost to value of publishers, so will readers when deciding whether (and where) to buy your book. “Trade Discount” plays in important role in your book’s pricing. What is it and what should you know about it?

Trade discount is the percentage of your retail price that you offer to the publishing trade for distributing your book to retailers. The “publishing trade” consists of wholesalers, distributors, and retailers. Instead, everyone involved with your book after the publisher all the way to the reader falls into the “publishing trade” circle, and they all take a piece of the trade discount.

Obviously, the larger the trade discount, the more money there is to split up among the parties involved. Standard trade discounts have ranged from 50% – 70%.

Most publishing companies do not offer any information about their trade discounting policies up-front, nor do they give the author any say in the matter. Ask your publisher. And make sure you to keep 100% of your profits.

Depending on your distribution goals, look for the flexibility to establish a trade discount from 0% – 55%. A 55% trade discount will generally result in an industry standard 40% retail margin, which is what a typical book retailer seeks when considering whether or not to order a book. So in addition to availability on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble’s websites among other online sales channels, your book can be published at the retail margin that bookstores and chains are looking for.

Choosing a Publisher

The Kindle effect in self-publishing

Commerce doesn’t exist without value, or in today’s age, pricing. Pricing is about availability, and availability implies no easy substitutes (real or perceived).

The internet has dramatically flattened and widened availability. The number of books a brick-and-mortar store can make available is a kernel compared to the capacity of Amazon, not to mention what the advent of digital formats and the Kindle have contributed. Real availability is virtually limitless. That effect cannot but have implication on pricing, right? It seems that some traditional publishers are slow to catch on when pricing books, especially their digital and Kindle titles.

But this is big news for the self-publishing author. With full-service self-publishing options, you can now integrate a Kindle edition into the version library of your book AND control your own pricing, keeping 100% of your royalties. And here is the key – Amazon pays royalties based on one of two retail price categories:

$2.99 – $9.99 received 70% royalties

Above or below receive just 35%.

It seems like Amazon understands one or two things about commerce, and this couldn’t be better for self-publishing authors.

Choosing a Publisher

Book pricing – authors, what are you worth?

An interesting article published not long ago profiles one author’s success self-publishing over more traditional publishing models, most notably in terms of higher net royalties on book sales. In fact, the case study recorded significantly higher royalties on a relatively low quantity of book sales.

The book pricing advantages of self-publishing is no stranger to this blog, nor the increasingly successful population of authors who follow that path. While book pricing has a notable effect on your book sales and marketing efforts, your pricing decisions fall into the production (or even planning) stage.

Also interesting, this particular article also mentioned that writers should never have to pay for publishing upfront.

Compelling isn’t it? I’ve worked with many authors who have been pulled in by that concept, but in the end find themselves a book of average production quality sold back to them at highly marked-up costs which would find difficulty competing in any retail market.

Free publishing mirrors the traditional model, and its easy to find validation in your writing through an organization that would publish material for free.

But…

Publishers are businesses and need to make money too, after all. Often this free publishing model really only puts self-designed books right back in the hands of its author, not readers.

One successful alternative does involve upfront publishing fees, which opens a direct contract between authors and publishers including quality, professional production on books that are competitively sold in the marketplace, where readers buy books. Make sure your self-publishing choice includes those things like cover design, interior formatting, and full distribution. Also, as previously mentioned– and the significance here is worth the redundancy – make sure your publisher offers pricing flexibility (control) and 100% royalties on book sales.

Book Doctor

Guest Post: Ask the Book Doctor

The Book Doctor offers Typography & Dialogue advice for the self-publishing writer…

Q: When I first started on a novel in 1995, publishers wanted italicized words to be underlined instead, even though we had the capability of changing the font on our computers. Is this still the case? Can we now use the appropriate font, or must we inquire from each publisher? I have visions of having two manuscripts, one with and one without italics.

A: It’s always best to check with the publisher, but The Chicago Manual of Style says to use italics. If you do use underlines, tell the publisher your intent that underlined items are to be set in italics in the printed version.

Q: In Write In Style I did not see anywhere you may have addressed this directly, but when writing internal dialogue, I take it from your book that you would never say he told himself or I told myself something. Is that correct?

A: This conclusion might be drawn from the fact that in my book I say “thought to himself” is redundant, because we cannot think to anyone but ourselves. We can, however, tell other people things, just as we can tell ourselves things, so I have no problem with saying he told himself, she told herself, or I told myself.

What’s your question about writing or publishing? Bobbie Christmas, book doctor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to

Book Marketing, Book Promotion

More on Book Titles for self-publishing authors

How effective is your title? Did you know that a professional, optimized book title can, in some cases, mean literally thousands of extra dollars in book sales? We recently covered book title news and the importance of your cover in your book marketing efforts.

You may still be considering among a number of book titles, even if your manuscript is near complete or even complete. Or, maybe you’ve had the title of your book in your mind for a long time, even before you began writing. In either case, let’s take a closer look at the importance of book titles.

People do judge books by the cover, and that includes the book title. Effective book titles can sometimes mean the difference between lackluster sales and a very successful self-published book, especially in today’s marketplace.

Amazon is by far the largest book marketplace, and as we know, it an exclusively online retailer. The fact is more and more readers are finding products online, and books are no exception. With that dynamic it is increasingly important that your book title be rich with keywords and key phrases – search terms that potential customers might type into Amazon & Google when looking for information on the topic of your book.

This is particularly true for non-fiction books, but fiction and even poetry can benefit from a well chosen title and subtitle. You may be thinking wait a minute, I don’t want to dilute the artistic value of my book with an optimized book title. The good news is that you don’t really have to. Online sales don’t require that your subtitle be included in your actual cover design. However, it is valuable for them to be included in the distribution information for your book in places like online databases and the copyright registration. This helps with search engine optimization.

Here is what we suggest you consider in selecting your book title and subtitle:

Consider its originality and/or uniqueness
Review your title suggestion and synopsis to compile a list of keywords and/or phrases for your book
Search and Google databases for other previously published books with titles similar to yours. Here is a screen shot of a simple Google search result on “Baseball History” for example (click image to view regular format in your browser:

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