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...some people have clearly never written their own book and have no idea what it costs to deliver a high-quality, professional-looking book. My pages are 80 stock and the cover is 130 stock, both with glossy finishes; that means it ain't cheap. My HD photos are bold and in color; that ain't cheap either. After I pay all of my costs, including all the packaging and shipping costs, I make around $22 per book profit;
One of the most discouraging things about writing a book nowadays is this very thing mentioned. I have a couple more book sin the works and am thinking about just doing PDF downloads instead of worrying about the hassles of working with a printer and the thousands it costs for hardcopies.
It is ridiculous the amount of money the printers want... and my own experience led me to believe there is price gouging involved.
I authored a book for the insulator hobby in 2015. It is 270 pages full color. I chose the publisher I did b/c their color printing price quoted was incredibly low compared to any other publisher. After signing the contract the publisher came back to me and said they had made a mistake and it was going to cost $6,000.00 more b/c it was color. I told them we had discussed that already and we were under contract now. They said a mistake had been made, but they would honor the contract. They also told me they really would not be losing money anyway, the profit for them was just going to be smaller for them. In other words, at 1/3 of the price they were still making profit with a full color printing!
Just like printer companies have been taking advantage of people for years selling cartridge based printers, this seemed to tell me anything involving colored ink has been way overpriced now for a long time. The printer companies now offer external ink tank printers b/c people had been making external units anyway and selling them to help people bypass the printer cartridge trap. I am hoping this will filter into printing businesses somehow as well.
BTW...in the end it cost a total of only 42.00 ea. for the printer to print my full color 270 page book. Publishers suggest, believe it or not, you charge THREE times actual printing costs. I could not do that and get a good night sleep. I was not after money anyway. My price was 50.00 including shipping (media rate is about 2.00).
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Posted 07/13/2024 9:15 pm
