There are several factors that will affect your production costs (editorial, design, proof-reading) when you self publish a book. I’ll cover those in another guide which I’ll share first in Gorgeous, sign up to read it first.

One part that has caught out a few of my clients is the print costs and % they will make on each sale and this post offers advice on how authors may lower it.

The parts that make up the print costs

• Page count

• Ink type (black ink or colour ink)

• Trim size

  • Regular: Smaller than 6.12 inches (155 mm) in width or 9 inches (229 mm) in height.

  • Large: Larger than 6.12 inches (155 mm) in width or 9 inches (229 mm) in height.

Important notes!

Many authors think that bleed settings or the cover finish (matte or glossy) affect the price of your book, and they do not.  And trim size is only affected if you go above or below a 6″x9″ book. Above is more expensive, and below is cheaper.

Like all printers, there is a calculation based on paper waste. Each large sheet of printing is divided up into sections and pages of a book are printed across it, the sheet is folded down and trimmed to make sections in multiples of 8 or 16 (which is why books that are not divisible by these numbers have odd numbers of blank pages). This video explains how a printing press is set up and how text is printed on sheets.

How do you find your print cost?

I recommending doing your calculations before you start talking to cover designers, typesetters, page designers and editors so you can work out your production budgets and set how many pages you can afford inside the book. An editor can help you cut words and the page designer will know the book length. You can ask them to give you a word count based on a sample chapter as part of the project so you can work out a rough number of pages by dividing the word count by the words in your manuscript.

1. Open the KDP dashboard

2. Find the book and hover over the three dots on the right. Select Edit print book content. Be sure to edit the book content of the paperback or hardcover and not the ebook.

3. Scroll to the bottom of the Book Content window, and there are the printing costs.

How to reduce the print costs

• If you’ve already got your inside pages and you’ve employed a designer or typesetter to create them, consider the fee they’ll charge to make changes. They will likely charge you as they’ve worked to your brief (which is why it’s good to get your print costs sorted out first). Is that economical? Also note that your cover design will also require adjustment and that this may be an extra charge. For me these are significant, and therefore chargable, changes to the brief and that’s why they’re always on the briefing form.

• If the cost is worth while or the interior design is in your control then here are some ideas on how to get more £ for each book printed.

• Reduce the point size of the font or the pixel size (depending on what platform you use, most design software and designers use point which is equal to 0.77mm) but be careful to not make it so small the read will find it hard. Generally I recommend 9 point and no lower, 12 is the RNIB guidance. It isn’t always a good thing as you may exclude readers or put them off resulting in fewer book sales.

• Reduce the leading or line width - this should however be proportional to the font size. In points the least I would go is 2 points more than the point size of the text. For example 9 point text on a 11 point leading.

• Check your margins, if you’ve left lots of space around the text can you decrease the space enough to bring back a line? Do check it all fits within the guidelines set by KDP.

• Choose black ink instead of colour ink. This isn’t great for primary, children and graphic books that tend to have lots of colour (and if you’ve paid your illustrator to create colour it’s not the most cost effective way of producing a book) but if your book has one or two graphs, can you use texture instead of colour and save on costs?

• Trim size - this may not make any difference at a 5 x 8” or other standard sizes and again it’s a big reformatting job for the creator of the insides pages and the cover designer.

• Go with paperback instead of hardback is an easy win. You could have paperback first and then create the hardback later or vice versa.