Let’s Talk About Money

There are three things that are normally forbidden to discuss at the family dinner table: religion, politics, and money.

Money, in the self publishing industry, can sometimes feel like an imaginary thing. Or sometimes, it’s worse, a nonexistent thing. I’m here to tell you that isn’t true. Money exists here, and you can earn it (and you will have to spend it). So, let’s demystify it. Because this isn’t just a feel-good industry where you are handed a silver platter with stacks of cash.

The Honest Truth

Surprise! Prices change, and quickly. At the time of writing this article, the price for a copyright is $65, but there is a proposed price hike up to $85.

So this is my disclaimer: research prices before committing to anything. This blog post will be outdated (unfortunately sooner rather than later). I will try my best to keep it current, but this industry is sometimes a moving target.

The other thing to notice is that because of the shifting prices it means that you might have to pick and choose what’s right for you. Not sure if you will end up publishing a sequel? Buy one ISBN instead of 10. Want to figure out if registering a copyright is worth it? Check the current price.

This means you have homework to do. This blog will still be relatively useful, even with outdated information, because it will at least tell you what to check.

All of the following information is based on US pricing and laws.^*

^* If you have specific questions about legal items mentioned in this blog, please, please, please hire a lawyer. They are important (but an additional cost that you will need to factor in (and not discussed in this post)). I am not a lawyer and none of the information here is official legal advice. This is just my own knowledge on the subject.

ISBNs

Alright, this is probably the biggest thing for me (next to copyright and URLs). ISBNs are a way to index your book into the vast network of books. It is important to know what type of ISBN you are getting and where it is from.

There are scammers out there that will charge you for an ISBN, when really what they do is take your money for a marked-up price and register the ISBN at the source. What might make it even worse is if they register it under their own name or LLC.

The correct place to get an ISBN is Bowker (MyIdentifiers) (this is US-based). Here is the cost breakdown:

When I am publishing my novels I will buy the 10 pack. This gives me plenty of ISBNs for my current work, any deluxe editions, and other works that could be coming up. Bundling here makes sense unless you are thinking you might be a one-off writer (which there is no shame in that).

There are Free-ISBN alternatives: KDP, Books.by. But they get listed as the publisher and end up locking you into that platform. This might be fine (Amazon is a sturdy platform and it’s free if you are on a shoestring publishing budget).

My suggestion: Buy your own ISBN. Own your ISBN. This is vital. Amazon changes business practices? Simply move your ISBN somewhere else. Want to have two, or three, or fifty-thousand printers (for the love of God please don’t do fifty-thousand (for your own sanity))? You get to do that (assuming their ToS isn’t exclusive).

Copyright

You already own your copyright! Yay! Section done. Nothing else to do.

Well, not entirely true. In the US you own your copyright by default when you create the work and set it in the medium it will be used in. However, there is something to know: you can also file a copyright with the US Copyright Office.

Why do this? It basically creates an official record with the US Government that says, ‘on this date, at this time, author X owns this work officially.’ It will make it easier to litigate in court.

However, whether you register or not, it is important to keep receipts of your work. Keep dates of when you first started drafting. And dates of each draft. Keep a clean timeline where you can so you can also prove (with or without a registration) that you own the copyright.

This is most likely not going to be a problem. But if it is, it’s a big one.

The copyright office charges a fee for the registration. Currently it is $65, but there is a proposal to increase it. Just keep a pulse on that, and check before you register.

Let’s Print This Thing!

Printing is where your real math has to come into play. You get to be one of those superheroes where the numbers are flying around you and you have to catch them. But you aren’t a superhero, and this isn’t a fiction movie. This is real life.

Alright, let’s dive in!

Amazon KDP

I will give you the current formula up front:

royalty = (royalty rate × list price) − printing cost

Worked print costs: 100 pg = $2.30 · 200 pg = $3.40 · 300 pg = $4.60. A 300-page hardcover prints for ~$9.25.

KDP has an official royalty calculator that you can use. Make sure to check that out. KDP is a great service (for authors printing books).

Here is my breakdown for Seven Minutes (216 pages):^**

^* Hardcover is case laminated (no dust jacket).
^** Printing costs are a flat rate for Amazon. There is zero discount applied for bulk printing costs.

Kindle Unlimited

KU pays per page read, not per borrow.

Current rate: $0.004888 per page (May 2026)—call it ~half a cent a page. Past-year range: ~$0.0041 to ~$0.0050. It’s remarkably stable—moves less than a tenth of a cent month to month.

BUT it moves all the time, here’s why:

Amazon sets a monthly pot (the KDP Select Global Fund ($66.9M in May 2026)) and divides it by all pages read across the program. Amazon never publishes the rate directly; it’s backed into. So it’s always approximate and changes every month.

The page unit is KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages)—Amazon’s own standardized page count, not your print page count. A ~50,000-word novel ≈ ~200 KENP, so one full read-through earns roughly $0.90–$1.00.

One more thing that is vital to know: KU requires enrolling the ebook in KDP Select = 90-day Amazon exclusivity on the digital edition. You can’t sell the ebook anywhere else (print/other formats are unaffected). That exclusivity is the price of the “more reach.”

So what’s this “Rate” thing?

When you price your paperback, KDP shows you a royalty rate—for a book sold on Amazon, that number is 60%. You might feel like Amazon is handing you 60% of your book sold on Amazon. That’s not quite what’s happening, and honestly, it confuses me too.

Here’s the real version: the rate is the slice of your list price (the sticker price you set) that Amazon starts you with. The other 40%? That’s Amazon’s cut for being the store—keeping the lights on, selling and printing your book, and managing credit card transactions. Fair enough. That’s a fair enough deal to reach readers.

But things still get more complicated. Out of your 60%, Amazon still subtracts what it cost to actually print the book. So the real math is:

(60% × list price) − printing cost = what actually lands in your pocket

Let’s put real numbers on it. Say your paperback is 6×9, 300 pages, and you list it at $15.99:

60% of $15.99 = $9.59 (your starting slice) minus $4.60 to print it = $4.99 per copy.

So a $15.99 book doesn’t get you $15.99—and it doesn’t even get you a 60% slice of it. It earns you about five bucks once Amazon takes its store cut and the printer takes its cut. That’s the number that actually matters.

One more bump in the road: 60% is the rate for a normal Amazon sale. If you turn on expanded distribution (so your book can reach other online stores and bookstores through Amazon’s network), the rate drops to 40%—because now there’s another middleman in the chain who needs paying too.

My suggestion: This is where you put your storefront for traditional copies that the public buys.

IngramSpark

This is vital. Use the official pricing sheet (none of the blogs out there (that includes this one)). IngramSpark seems to be the biggest moving target (which means blogs get outdated all the time).

There is no source, except the IngramSpark official sheet, that can get this pricing for royalties right.

In IngramSpark, after you have published, go to Tools > Compensation Calculator and input your ISBN.

Here is my breakdown for Seven Minutes (216 pages):^**

You set both the list price and the discount. Most bookstores require returns ON and a 50% discount.
^** All print prices are for single-copy purchase. Bulk purchasing might apply discounts.

My suggestion: IngramSpark is where I purchase my printed versions to sell on my own sites. Special signed copies with extras included.

Soooo, What Now?

Now, you do the math. Clearly with my pricing, buying a single hardcover book from IngramSpark is cheaper but paperback is more expensive. Does it make more sense to place two orders, one from IngramSpark and one from KDP? Well, depends on how many you are buying.

KDP vs IngramSpark: Bulk Ordering

KDP and IngramSpark work completely differently on bulk.

KDP author copies: flat print cost, no discount, ever. Ordering 5 or 500, you pay the same per unit. (Max 999 per order.)

IngramSpark: discounts off print cost that scale with quantity. Confirmed tiers from their print-discounts page (0–15%); the upper three (20/25/30%) are the standard published ladder with the 35% top confirmed. (Again, make sure to verify all numbers to ensure you are getting accurate data, at publication time.)

Does the discount offset KDP’s cheaper base? (300-page 6×9, your example.) KDP flat = $4.60. IngramSpark base = $5.71, discounted per tier:

The bottom line: the discount doesn’t offset it until ~1,500 copies. The crossover sits at the 20% tier and it’s remarkably stable across page counts:

• 100 pages: KDP wins until 20% (crossover ~1,500 copies). At 10k: Ingram $1.81 vs KDP $2.30.
• 200 pages: dead tie at 20%; Ingram wins from 25% up. At 10k: Ingram $2.76 vs KDP $3.40.
• 300 pages: KDP wins through 15%; Ingram edges ahead at 20%. At 10k: Ingram $3.71 vs KDP $4.60.

Bottom line (and this sucks): You (1) need to do the research to see current pricing and (2) figure out what works for your own book.

Pricing Suggestions

But Teagan, how do I know what to set my customer price at? What is “fair”?

Here is some research I have done about “fair pricing” for your books. Note: this is just what industry suggestions are. You do you.

Domain Names

This is a relatively short section because I covered this in my “Getting Ready To Publish” blog post. But here is the main takeaway:

Own. Your. Domain.

In my opinion this isn’t a humble suggestion. This is a must. Owning your own domain makes your book look more professional, and when your book takes off you don’t have to fight scalpers for your domain. It is an upfront cost that is well worth it.

Right now I pay for a range of domains on NameCheap (these are per year): tkg.social = $40, tkgpublishing = $12, tkg.pub = $12, etc.

Most that you are going to get (unless it is a hot domain (or a .ai domain)), with a .com, will run you from $10–$15. Some might be cheaper depending on what you are willing to settle for.

Editing

Editing is really important for your book. It is the thing that will take it from a bunch of jumbled words to a real thing people can read.

I graduated with a degree in CS. Soooo, English isn’t my strongest area. I can speak it gooder than when I was five, but I still struggle. And when it comes to writing? I am a mess.

I pay for a good editor (Odessa Taylor). She takes a fine-tooth comb and finds all the mistakes and plotholes. She is amazing. Currently (as posted on her website), she charges $0.008 per word. Which is an amazing deal. Check her website out when you get a second.

Here are normal editing rates for other editors as a range:

What that means in dollars. A rough shorthand: each pass runs about $20–$78 per 1,000 words. For a typical 80,000-word novel:

Scale it: at ~$0.02–$0.05/word for a standard copyedit, a 60k book ≈ $1,200–$3,000, and a 100k book ≈ $2,000–$5,000.

My suggestion: You can edit your books yourself. Which is probably fine if you are an English major or better at English than I am. But even if that is the case I still suggest an editor as well, another set of eyes on the work can save you a headache from having to fix a massive plothole that you just couldn’t see while you lived in the work.

Cover Design and Typesetting

Alright, the area that I think a lot of writers are less experienced in: design work.

Typesetting

I have covered typesetting and how I do it in the “Typesetting in Code” blog post. But I want to give you some pricing estimates if you decide that LaTeX isn’t your thing.

Reference: a ~60k-word novel runs ~$200–$400 for combined print + ebook at budget/mid tier. Vellum/Atticus are one-time apps (~$150–$250, unverified—price-check before printing).

Cover design is also something that I am not a pro at, but the most useful tool I use is Canva. Canva Pro is priced at: $15/mo. This gets you extra fonts, designs, and other assets and lets you use those commercially (always check ToS and usage disclaimers before selling your book with those). This is a great tool with a low learning curve to get you easy and professional covers for your books. Don’t just throw something together. Treat it like your book. Create something, let it sit, come back and edit again and again until it is right.

If you don’t want to make your own cover here are some rates I found online:

Ebook-only front cover = cheapest; full print wrap (front + spine + back) costs more—spine width depends on final page count.

My suggestion: Take the time to learn typesetting (however you want to do it) and cover design yourself. These are two areas that can save you the most money if you are creating multiple books. (And you might be able to pay your editor to help design and review your work (don’t bank on it and ask them up front).)

Proof Copies

This is slightly discussed above for author cost of a book. Proof copies typically are the same price.

Here’s the thing though. You want to iterate through your proof copies until it is right. Get a proof copy read through the whole thing to check the typeset and grammar, check the cover (front, back, and spine). Notate anything that is off. Fix it. Then buy another proof. When that arrives check the things notated. Fix as needed. Iterate until it is what you want.

There will always be things you miss. That is going to happen. Just keep in mind that on both KDP and IngramSpark (as long as your edits are minimal or purely cosmetic (no whole new chapters or characters)) you can upload a new version of your interior as a version 2, 3, 4, etc.

Where Does That Leave Us?

This is the reality: being a self published author is hard. You have to be a writer, editor, designer, social media marketer, salesperson, typesetter, and accountant, all in one. That is a lot. And sometimes offloading that effort by paying for a service is worth it.

So, you need to set a budget for your book up front. Set a hard number, and commit to that. Then, allocate your resources. Don’t allocate and hit that exact number. Leave some extra cash for unexpected costs.

Your book deserves the budget you set for it, but be reasonable with yourself. Budget in a way that makes sense for projected sales. Debut author? Maybe set a lower budget. But it might be smart to set a higher budget because you want this book to wow people.

See? There are multiple ways to decide a budget. The first decision allows for minimal risk, if the book (for whatever reason) flops. You didn’t spend your life’s savings on it. The second creates a strong first impression on a reader, so maybe you get more purchases. It all comes down to risk assessment, which is what accountants do.

Don’t put yourself financially in a hole for your book (the publishing industry says you should (everyone in the industry says that if you don’t go into debt you never believed in your book (that is not true))). If you dig a hole you can’t get out of then there can be no other books.

Publishing is a gate that is hard to get through if you are self publishing. Your art is beautiful but there are things in place that might be a stumbling block. So, take the time to research, prepare, and budget. Then move forward with confidence (and a little bit of healthy fear).

Your art is worth it. Get that thing published!

To make all of this less abstract, I built a free companion worksheet to go with this post: a blank budget you fill in line by line, three worked example budgets (from a lean debut to a big fantasy), and a quick-reference pricing sheet—everything above, in one printable page you can actually use.

Sources

Primary / official:

Secondary (useful context, not primary):

• IngramSpark 2026 price increase (Jane Friedman)
• IngramSpark US 30%→40% discount floor change (PublishDrive)
• KDP author copies (no bulk discount, comparison context) (AuthorImprints)
• 2026 editing cost breakdown (worked totals by manuscript length) (Inkshift)

Book pricing by genre (paperback / hardcover / ebook ranges) — all secondary / aggregated.

No single authoritative dataset publishes genre price tables; these ranges are triangulated across indie-publishing pricing guides. Treat as reference ranges, not gospel—the real move is checking comparable titles in your own genre.

• How to price a book (2026) (Books.by)
• Average paperback price (2026) (Barker Books)
• How to price your indie book by genre (2026) (River)
• Genre & pricing (Indie Author Magazine)
• Pricing self-published books (Daniel J. Tortora)
• Ebook pricing guide (2026) (The Books Central)
• Average ebook price (Automateed)

Cover design cost (freelance-marketplace ranges) — secondary / aggregated. Strongest is Reedsy (real marketplace transaction data); the rest set the budget-end range.

• Book cover design cost (9,600+ projects, avg ~$880) (Reedsy)
• Book cover design cost 2026 (MIBLART)
• Book cover design pricing (99designs)
• Book cover design category (Fiverr)

Typesetting / interior formatting cost — secondary / aggregated. Reedsy marketplace data is the most authoritative (real transactions, avg ~$840).

• Cost to self-publish (interior design data) (Reedsy)
• Book cover design cost page (also carries interior figures) (Reedsy)
• Book formatting services (Kindlepreneur)
• Book formatting services guide (2026) (Chapter)
• Book layout & typesetting category (Fiverr)

Note: Vellum/Atticus one-time app prices (~$150–$250) were mentioned but not verified this session—price-check before publishing.