Printing

[Luigi Astron Lucciano]

Where is the best place to print a book and how much it cost to print a book?

[BravoJedi]

I self-publish through Lulu Press, Inc.

They will take x amount out of every book for production costs and then they give you additional options for global marketing, etc. Paperbacks are more expensive; eBooks are dirt cheap for those obvious production costs (i.e. paper costs, binding, & printing). Every additional option does increase the price of the book. Example being, when you publish a book through them (Lulu) for, lets say $20, you as the author are not getting $20. That money is divided up to production costs and optional global marketing costs.

A good idea is to assume 40% to 50% of the price of the book is yours through most independent publishing companies, although that varies based on each specific company and their individual fees & other obligations. The higher you price your book, the more you get back. The higher you price, however, the more of a risk you take going from a general McDonalds brand coffee to a more specific Starbucks brand coffee. When money is tight, coffee is coffee, right? The same goes with books. If you outprice your customers, they will go somewhere else because ultimately there are millions of books to read and your, mine, or anyone else's book is just one of millions of books. Just like coffee.

General rule: paperbacks $14.99 to $26.99, eBooks between $1.00 and $15.00. That is roughly the current market, I havenot seen paperbacks past $26.99 and eBooks not past $20.00 (unless they are academic books). If you break the $30 mark for paperbacks or eBooks, you risk pushing yourself into used college textbook prices and pricing yourself out of the general market unless you are the second coming of authors. Who buys used college textbooks? College students, not your Average Joe or Average Jane reading for the fun of it.

Probably more of an answer than what you were asking, but it gives you a good picture. Not every self-publishing company is the same. Here are a few:

Amazon KDP
Blurb
Book Baby
Draft2Digital
IngramSpark
Lulu Press, Inc.
Smashwords

BEWARE OF COPYRIGHTS. I went with Lulu Press, Inc. back in 2016 originally because they allowed me to keep 100% of my copyright (i.e. I own my work, not Lulu Press). I have heard, never seen myself though, from authors who have been through nightmares with companies about their works & rights to them. Read the fine print, whether these horror stories are true or not.