Guide to choosing a self-publishing printing press.
- Claudia
- Feb 22, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 23, 2024
I have seen a lot of Facebook and LinkedIn queries regarding which publishing press is the best with regard to quality and cost; whether a certain publisher is actually a vanity press; and "a vanity press? What's that?"
If these are questions that you have asked yourself recently, continue reading this post as I will try to answer all your questions!
So, what is the difference between self-publishing, publishing with a vanity press, and publishing with a traditional publishing house?
The difference between self-publishing and publishing your book with a traditional publishing house is that with self-publishing, the whole process is funded by yourself, you are in control, and you get all the profits! With traditional publishing, the process is funded and controlled by the publisher, and you will receive royalties when your books are sold, however, the publisher will keep most of the profits.
Now comes the interesting part – vanity publishers! There are two different descriptions and people have different views:
A printing company where you can print your creative works. These companies do not do any editing, design, etc. You just pay them to print and bind your book or other projects.
These are publishers that offer editing, cover design, publishing, and distribution of your book. You pay them often a few thousand pounds for all the services they provide.
Unfortunately, these vanity presses have a bad reputation as success is not guaranteed. Many say that because you pay money upfront, the vanity publisher is not motivated to deliver quality service. They also don't care about the quality of the book.
Don't forget, the success of a book depends on many factors, not just professional editing and a nice cover (though important) – in the end, a gripping novel or a well-researched non-fiction book is the key to achieving success.
Not all vanity presses have bad reputations though, and some self-publishing authors prefer to work with a company that takes the bulk of the work out of their hands. It opens up time for the author to do other things and is likely less stressful as you don't have to hunt down a good editorial professional or cartoonist.
These companies hire professionals that need to be paid for their services, so their publishing fees are just an accumulation of all the services you're likely to spend on your manuscript anyway, just without the hassle.
For example, "BookBaby", a vanity press with multiple service packages to choose from, has good reviews (4.5 stars on Trustpilot). Also, you can print your books with them without buying a publishing package.
Bottom line, if traditional publishing is not possible or preferable, self-publishing your book is always the best option. Before using a vanity press to publish your books, do some research and ask for reviews from fellow writers. The writing community is very supportive, so use that to your advantage.
The question arises: how do you self-publish your books when you don't want to use a vanity press?
Luckily, nowadays there are lots of printing presses available to authors where, instead of paying a large amount of money upfront, you pay a printing and service fee per book sold. The books get printed on demand when a customer places an order, and you, the author, can choose the price of your book and more.
Please note: when self-publishing, you will need to purchase an ISBN per type of book you publish. For example, a print version of your manuscript and an ebook version of that same manuscript have different ISBNs.
When you are self-publishing, you will still have to invest money in your book, however, you get to choose your editor, proofreader, and cover designer – the costs of publishing depend on who you choose to work with. Also, many self-publishing authors decide to put their publishing budget into editing and proofreading only and doing the cover design themselves, or they do their own editing and only pay for proofreading and the cover design. However you want to spend your money, it's all up to you. That's the beauty of self-publishing.
Here is a list of well-known assisting self-publishing presses with a link to their websites and what they offer:
IngramSpark
IngramSpark is one of the more popular choices amongst self-publishing authors. They offer great quality products and worldwide distribution for print and ebooks. Your book will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and more. Also, bookstores and libraries can order your books directly from IngramSpark.
You pay $49 per title you want IngramSpark to print and distribute for you; this amount is for both print and ebook. Or, if you only want IngramSpark to distribute your book as an ebook, you pay $25 per title. *They sometimes waive the registration fee, so have a look at their website. Royalties:
IngramSpark has multiple cost calculators on its website. I used a standard paperback size of A5, perfect bound, black and white interior, cream pages, a glossy cover, no duplex cover, and 350 pages with a list price of £7.99.
The calculator results were £2.84 profit excl. taxes without wholesale discount and £1.24 profit excl. taxes with a 20% wholesale discount. The wholesale discount applies to bookstores and libraries. You are in full control of this percentage.
I could not find the royalty percentage of ebook sales.
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
KDP is a very well-known self-publishing platform. Many authors go with KDP because it is easy and Amazon has a huge reach when it comes to book sales. KDP also offers KDP Select, where your book gets enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited (KU) library and you get royalties for every page read.
KDP offers authors that publish solely on their platform a free ISBN/ASIN per book. This means that your book cannot be published with that particular ISBN/ASIN with other publishers or printing presses.
Royalties:
KDP offers multiple royalty options for ebook sales, a quick browse on the website says they offer 35%, 70%, and per pages read for Kindle Unlimited.
When I looked at their "paperback royalty" page, Amazon mentions a 60% royalty on paperbacks via their Amazon Distribution channels and a 40% royalty on paperbacks via their Extended Distribution channels.
KDP example rates taken from their FAQ pages:
(Royalty rate x list price) – printing costs = royalty
For example, your list price is $15. Your book is a 333-page paperback with black ink sold on the US marketplace:
(0.60 x $15) - $4.85 = $4.15
For example, your list price is $15. Your book is a 333-page paperback with black ink sold through Expanded Distribution channels:
(0.40 x $15) - $4.85 = $1.15
For example, if $10 million in funds are available in a given month with 100 million total pages read. Note: Actual payouts may vary:
Author with a 100-page Kindle eBook that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $1,000 ($10 million x 10,000 pages for this author / 100,000,000 total pages).
Author of a 200-page Kindle eBook that was borrowed and read completely 100 times would earn $2,000 ($10 million x 20,000 pages for this author / 100,000,000 total pages).
Author of a 200-page Kindle eBook that was borrowed 100 times but only read halfway through on average would earn $1,000 ($10 million x 10,000 pages for this author / 100,000,000 total pages).
Below you can find the royalty results KDP gave me when I entered my fictional book's details in their royalty calculator: £0.59 per book sold.
Please note, KDP explicitly mentions that this is merely an estimate and, as mentioned previously, Amazon's royalty percentages vary.
Lulu Press
Lulu is a print-on-demand assisting publishing press that allows authors to create a profile to sell their ebook and/or print books for free. Their website has a lot of guides to help you with the publishing process, from explaining "bleed" to designing a cover with Canva.
There are no fees to upload your books, you only pay a fee when a customer orders a book. Lulu offers global distribution and direct sales and you are in full control of sizing and pricing.
The product types Lulu offers are print books; photo books; notebooks; calendars; comic books; magazines; cookbooks; yearbooks; and ebooks.
Royalties:
I could not find the royalty percentage of ebook sales.
Lulu also has a price and royalty calculator on their website for print books. I have used the same book specifications as you can see below. Lulu says that the cost of printing my fictional book is $9.86 per copy.
Lulu's royalties per book sold vary greatly depending on the distribution channel. Lulu sets a minimum listing price for your book – this price is calculated based on the Global Distribution fees. If you stick to the minimum listing price, and your book is sold through this channel, you will not get any royalties. However, you can choose your listing price beforehand to suit your preferred royalties per book sold.
As you can see from the images below, I opted for the minimum listing price because, personally, I found the minimum listing price very high for a paperback book and I wanted to see what my other royalty options were with Lulu.
When you are selling your book through Lulu's bookstore or Lulu Direct, you can choose a different listing price than the minimum shown below.
Lulu has its own bookstore where customers can buy your book, both print and ebook. All the books that are being distributed via Lulu are available to customers through this platform at a royalty percentage of 80%. With the minimum listing price for Global Distribution, in the UK market, I would receive £6.04 per book sold.
As mentioned before, the distribution fees for Lulu's Global Distribution are quite steep and offer a small royalty percentage. To make £1.08 in royalties per book sold, the listing price needs to be £17.80. Food for thought...
The highest royalties, 100%, are from selling your books through Lulu Direct. This is a brilliant way for authors with a dedicated fan base to sell books.
"Lulu Direct connects your Lulu book and your own website using popular ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. You'll have access to 3,000+ book format combinations and the freedom to design your own interior and cover PDFs. When you sell a book using Lulu Direct, you handle the exchange of funds using your website and pay Lulu for printing and shipping costs.
When you use Lulu Direct to sell your book, customers buy from you directly. You control the price and know exactly how much you'll earn from every sale. Also, you'll white label all the receipts; your customers only see you and your brand when they order your book."
Barnes & Noble Press
Barnes & Noble is a very well-known bookseller that has its own self-publishing printing press. When you upload your book to B&N Press, your book (ebook and print) will be available on Nook devices and on BN.com for download and print-on-demand. They often feature select B&N Press books in their emails, online sales & promotions, and other marketing programmes to reach dedicated B&N customers. There is no mention of set-up fees.
Their website has self-publishing resources to help authors make the best book possible, such as a print cover design template and information on building an author platform.
Royalties:
B&N offers authors 70% royalties on ebooks and 55% royalties on print books. They have a royalty calculator on their website, which I used to create a royalty estimate for my fictional book.
I used the same book specs as with the other publishers. You can see them below. For this book, Barnes & Noble put a minimum listing price of $10,92. I changed it to $10.99, which is just over £9. After printing costs, they estimate royalties of $0.58 per book sold.
As mentioned previously, they calculate royalties for ebooks at 70%. There are no printing fees, thus if I were to list my fictional ebook for $4.99, my royalties per download will be $3.49. Not bad...
Draft2Digital
With Draft2Digital you can sell your book as an ebook or with print-on-demand. You can even offer your ebook for free. They will only take a percentage of your ebook sale when you make money. They offer global distribution as standard and you can also opt in and out of any online store where you want to sell your book. For example, if you have already published your book on KDP, you can opt out of that particular store so it isn't listed twice.
Their website has a book formatting tool you can use for free. It offers multiple templates for both print and ebooks. Also, when you publish with Draft2Digital, you get an author profile/landing page and a universal book link you can use to direct customers to buy your book or tell them more about yourself.
(Please note that most assisting publishing presses have this feature on their website, even if I haven't mentioned it previously.)
Royalties:
Draft2Digital offers 60% royalties on ebooks and 45% royalties on print books.
They have no royalty calculator on their website, however, when you upload your book for free, they "inform you fully on the page where you set your price. Draft2Digital shows estimated royalties on a store-by-store basis based on your list price."
Thank you for reading. I wish you all the best with your publishing journey. I hope that this post was useful and that it answered all your questions. Which publishing press do you think you'll go with?
Information correct as per 21/02/23
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