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Far From the Madding Crowd
Far From the Madding Crowd

The official blog of CinnamonTeal Design and Publishing, and of The Dogears Bookshop.

Far From the Madding Crowd

The official blog of CinnamonTeal Design and Publishing, and of The Dogears Bookshop.

The Cost of Self Publishing – II

Posted on March 24, 2014March 25, 2014 By maddingcrowd

One frequent question that authors ask us concerns the cost of self-publishing. It is a fair question given that the authors foot the bill themselves and that many self-publishing companies advertise packages that indeed cost a lot. We have illustrated two books below that might give you a fair idea of what are the costs involved. These examples are based on actual books we have published:

For my earlier post on the costs of self-publishing, click here.

The first example is that of a manuscript that had a length of 22 pages when submitted.
A round of substantive editing was recommended for the text. The cost of editing, therefore, was 22 x 125 = Rs. 2750/-

The cover design cost Rs. 5000/-. Hence total cost thus far = Rs. 7750/-

Implementation-CostsThe author wished to have book dimensions of 5 x 8. For these dimensions, a book length of 62 pages was estimated.

Hence, typesetting charges = 62  x 25 = Rs. 1,550/-

Total costs thus far = Rs. 9300/-

Of these 62 pages, 12 were in colour.

The cost of printing was calculated as:
Cost of b/w pages = 50 x 0.65 = Rs. 32.50
Cost of col. pages = 12 x 6.25 = Rs. 75/-
Cost of cover (coloured cover, lamination and soft cover binding) = Rs. 65/-
Thus, total cost for 1 copy = Rs. 172.50

For an additional 5 library copies, which must be compulsorily submitted, the cost will be = 172.50 x 5 = 862.50

For 6 copies (5 for libraries and 1 for the author), the cost of printing = Rs. 1035/-

Hence the total costs incurred leading to the first copy = Rs. 10,335/-. Additional costs will depend on the number of copies the author wishes to print.

 

In another instance, let us take the example of of a manuscript that was of length 172 pages when submitted.
A round of copy editing was recommended for the text. The cost of editing, therefore, was 172 x 85 = Rs. 14620/-

The cover design cost Rs. 5000/-. Hence total cost thus far = Rs. 19620/-

The author wished to have book dimensions of 6 x 9″. For these dimensions, considering that the book had images, a book length of 234 pages was estimated.

Hence, typesetting charges (for books with images) = 234 x 35 = Rs. 8190/-

Total costs thus far = Rs. 27810/-

The cost of printing was calculated as:
Cost of b/w pages = 234 x 0.80 = Rs. 187.20
Cost of cover (coloured cover, lamination and soft cover binding) = Rs. 75/-
Thus, total cost for 1 copy = Rs. 262.20

For an additional 5 library copies, which must be compulsorily submitted, the cost will be = 262.20 x 5 = 1311/-

For 6 copies (5 for libraries and 1 for the author), the cost of printing = Rs. 1573.20

Hence the total costs incurred leading to the first copy = Rs. 29383.20. Additional costs will depend on the number of copies the author wishes to print.

Publishing

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About This Blog

Far From the Madding Crowd is the blog of CinnamonTeal Print and Publishing, and of The Dogears Bookshop, the first a self-publishing service, the second a physical bookshop, located in Goa (India). Our blogs cover topics mostly related to books, their production and sale, as also to the joyous topic of reading. wehave been in the book business since 2006, and we hope to share our observations of the Indian publishing industry with you.

We are also looking for guest bloggers who will share their thoughts with us, so if you are interested, please drop us a line at [email protected].

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