What Is The Cost To Self Publish A Book On Amazon?

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The cost to self-publish a book on Amazon can be zero, because Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) gives authors free tools to publish. What you pay for is the work around it: a cover, formatting, editing and research. In my experience that comes to about $100 to $150 a book if you write it yourself, and about $300 if you hire a ghostwriter. Below is what each step costs and where you can pay nothing. For more no-budget options, see free self-publishing tools that make a difference.

What does each step cost?

To add up your own book with your word count, use the free self-publishing cost calculator.

Most of what a publishing package charges for comes down to a few jobs you can pay for one at a time: publication under an imprint with an ISBN and barcode, a print-ready cover and, if you want it, a formatted interior. I do these at fixed prices on my publishing services page, and you keep every right and every royalty.

Can you really self-publish on Amazon for free?

Yes. I helped an author who had no budget at all. Draft2Digital takes your Word document and gives you an EPUB file, and KDP accepts Word documents directly. The cost of all that was nothing.

The catch is quality. The free converters take your Word file almost as it is, so a table of contents, links or footnotes may not come out right. Atticus puts a book into both ebook and print formats, and nothing else I have tried gets a book looking right so quickly. The one-time $147 is cheap for what it saves. That author was still deciding whether to pay for it.

What is the key triangle of time, money and quality?

You can only save on two of the three. Almost no time and no money gets a book out, but a low-quality one that collects one-star reviews. You either pay with your time and frustration or with money. When I started I went the cheaper route, and each month as royalties came in I reinvested them to make the next book better.

How much does it cost to get an audiobook made?

Free is possible through ACX, which is open to authors in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland. In a royalty share deal the narrator is paid nothing upfront and the two of you split the royalties for 7 years. ACX’s own help page says the rights holder earns 40% on the legacy rate or 50% on the new rate for exclusive distribution, and the producer gets an equal share of that, so you keep 20% or 25% (ACX: how royalties work).

I would not do that. It is better to find a narrator on Upwork and pay a price per finished minute. Then you keep the full royalty. I regret splitting royalties on my earlier audiobooks. For every book since I have used my own narrator.

What does it cost to print a paperback?

KDP prints on demand, so you do not pay for a print run. The printing cost comes out of each sale, and KDP gives the formula as fixed cost plus page count times per-page cost. Its own example is a 300-page black ink paperback with a regular trim size on Amazon.com: a 1.00 USD fixed cost plus 300 pages at 0.012 USD each is 4.60 USD (KDP help, Paperback printing cost). Rates differ by marketplace, ink and trim size, so use KDP’s printing cost and royalty calculator for your own book before you set a price.

What does a ghostwritten book cost?

You do not have to write the manuscript yourself. Many niches I wanted to publish in were ones I would rather pay someone else to write. I owned the rights to those manuscripts and checked each was not previously published, using tools like Copyscape. With a ghostwriter, the whole process costs me about $300 a book. Writing it myself brings it down to $100 or $150.

If a company says it will do everything for you, my experience is that it quotes $3,000 to $10,000 a book. Do it yourself first and get the hang of how it plays out. Money from the first books lets me raise quality on the next ones and hire virtual assistants, and I have now put 230 books on the market.

Should you buy the paid tools?

If you can afford them, buy them. The tools above save time and make the book look right, which is what earns the money back. If you spend nothing you often make nothing, and if you spend a lot on a book nobody wants, you do not earn it back either. Start cheap and reinvest.

Want a plan that fits your budget? Book a free 25-minute discovery call. If you are new to this, my other post on how much you can make self-publishing on Kindle shows what a book can earn, and alternatives to Amazon shows other places to sell. Not sure it is worth it at all? Read is self-publishing a good idea.

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