Jessica Parker
Senior Publishing Consultant
Authors of children’s books are quickly learning the difficulties in publishing children’s books in the age of digital printing and self-publishing. Unfortunately, it’s often too late in the process. There are several key elements that authors of children’s books must keep in mind early in the process in order to overcome certain obstacles they will face while publishing their books. However, the biggest thing I see authors struggle with is the pricing of their book.
Although digital printing and print-on-demand technology has made self-publishing possible, most people do not completely understand the concept of print-on-demand, which is very important for authors of children’s books. Digital printing is based off short print runs with quick turnaround times, which allows printers and fulfillment centers the ability to print books to order. Most online retailers have 48-hour turnaround times, meaning the book must be printed, packaged, and shipped within 48 hours of receiving the order. Due to this timing, self-published authors are able to list their books for sale online without having any up-front costs. Publishers and fulfillment centers collect the money from the buyer, and then start deducting the costs of production, packaging, and shipping. The money left over afterwards is paid to the author in the form of a royalty. Sounds great, right? The downside to this technology is that it is based off a quantity of one, which makes the price per book higher than a print run of 100, 500, 1,000, or more.
Now, the question I get most often is: “Why can’t I price my children’s book at $6.95?” I respond by saying, “Because you’ll end up paying your publisher or fulfillment center for every book sold.” Got your attention? There are two reasons most self-published children’s books cannot be priced that low. The first is that children’s books are most always full color, which is expensive to print. The average children’s book costs $5.50 to produce, and most online retailers take out a 30% commission. All in all, this makes it difficult to price your children’s book low like so many buyers are accustomed to seeing.
The most common follow-up question is: “Well, then why do I see children’s books for sale at retailers for $4.95?” Great question! This is made possible because these books were likely traditionally published and printed offset, which focuses on larger print runs. A great rule of thumb to remember here is that the more you print, the lower the price per unit. Traditional publishers print hundreds of thousands of copies in order to get the price per unit extremely low, which then allows them to sell the book for a lower price.
Although you may not be able to price your book at $6.95, you do want to price your children’s book as low as possible in order to compete with these traditionally published books. A great way to achieve this is to be cognizant of your production costs early on. Don’t design a children’s book that is sixty-four color pages that bleed. You also want to avoid large, oversized landscape books. Everything from the finished size of the book to the number of color pages can affect your production costs. The goal is to keep your production costs as low as possible without compromising the quality of the book.
Like
Loading...
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit Custom-Cookie Boxes, Corrugated Box Factory, Corrugated Cake Boxes Wholesale.