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Amazon Self-Publishing Costs

Amazon Self-Publishing Costs

One of the fastest and easiest ways to bring a completed manuscript to the market is through Amazon’s self-publishing process. You can quickly and easily have your books be able to reach millions of readers around the world while you retain rights to your creativity. There are three ways that you can utilize Amazon’s self-publishing services to make this happen.

1. Publish a printed book with CreateSpace.
2. Publish a digital book with Kindle Direct Publishing.
3. Create an audiobook with ACX.

The Amazon self-publishing costs you’ll encounter depend on the platforms you’ve decided to use to bring your manuscript to the market. Let’s review what those costs will be with each of these three methods so you can decide which is the best option for you.

The Costs of Printing With CreateSpace

CreateSpace offers authors a number of free services that can help to make the publishing process as painless as possible. There are also a number of professional services that are available at fairly competitive costs if you’re looking to print with Amazon today. Here is a current overview of their fee structure.

• Supported Interior PDF: $149
• Simple Interior: $199
• Custom Interior: $349
• Supported Cover PDF: $99
• Custom Cover: $399
• Custom Cover Premier: $599
• Kindle Conversion: $79
• Complex Kindle Conversion: $139
• Kindle for Kid’s Conversion: $149
• LCCN Assignment: $25

In addition to these layout, design, and conversion costs, Amazon through CreateSpace offers writers editing services as well. The cost of editing is based on the actual length of the manuscript submitted. These are the current prices that are based on 10,000 words of content.

• Copyediting: $160
• Line Editing: $210
• Editing Package: $300
• Editing Plus: $470

CreateSpace also offers marketing copy essentials to help you promote your new book. The cost of these copywriting services is $249.

The Costs of Printing With Kindle Direct Publishing

It does not cost anything to initially publish a book through Kindle Direct Publishing. As long as you have correctly formatted your files for uploading, then you’ll be able to list your book for free. You can also make changes to your listing for free. This means the Amazon self-publishing costs with this format depending on the royalty option you have chosen.

You can choose 35% royalties for all customers with KDP. Certain territories also qualify for a 70% royalty. To qualify for the 70% option, authors must meet list price requirements, have the price be 20% less than the physical book, and be available for sale in all geographies where the author has rights.

This means Amazon receives either 30% or 65% of the list price on every sale and you get the remainder of it as a royalty, which is paid periodically.

The Costs of Printing With ACX

ACX is the option to choose if you wish to turn your manuscript into an audiobook. You can upload unabridged audio that you’ve already created or you can choose to pay for new production. You’ll be able to negotiate this fee with your producer or decide to pay the producer out of your royalties if you choose to have an exclusive distribution arrangement with Amazon.

What is unique about the royalties of this platform is that you can choose to have a lower royalty for non-exclusive distribution. Exclusive arrangements earn 40%, while non-exclusive arrangements earn 25%. If you choose to pay your producer through royalties, then you would earn 20%. ACX also pays rights holders a $50 bounty every time their audiobook is the first one purchased by a new AudibleListener.

Payments are distributed when the minimum $50 threshold has been reached. Audiobooks through the retailers ACX distributes the work will sell the products for pricing under $7 to up to $35. The percentage of royalty earned is based on this price, before taxes, and Amazon takes the rest as part of the cost of doing business.

Just be certain that this is a process you want to include with your self-publishing work. If you enter into a production agreement and then decide to cancel, you are subject to cancellation fees of $100 plus an additional $100 for every finished hour of audiobook work completed, up to $2,500 in total.

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