What does it cost?
Needless to say, that depends on what you want, but you’ll have two payments to make:
The printer’s bill
My fee
I keep the two bills separate, and you’re free to find your own printer if you wish.
Digital printing
This is ideal if you want a small number of books at a time and any illustrations inside are black and white. (Covers are always assumed to be in colour.) A typical charge for an A5 paperback would be something like a penny a page plus 80p for the cover – so a book of 120 pages would cost around £2. Some authors start with 50 copies, which means that their initial outlay on printing isn’t much more than £100.
Litho printing
The quality of digital printing is improving all the time, but you get a better finish from litho. It’s also a little cheaper per book if you’re sufficiently confident to order a run of at least 500 copies, and much cheaper if you want thousands. But your immediate outlay is greater: the above A5 might cost £1.20 each for a thousand, making you a bigger profit per book if you sell them all, but you need decent funds and some storage space.
My fee
No, I can’t give you a figure until you tell me more. Editing text, scanning photographs, laying out pages, accommodating late changes, dealing with the printer, arranging an ISBN number, registering the book, writing press releases (I do everything except market your book, although I can advise on that, too) – all these things take a considerable amount of professional time. But I believe that I’m competitive!
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