How much does it REALLY cost to publish a book?

Why publishing costs are less important than printing costs...

All too often, authors are lured by a low up front cost - but, it's not the publishing fees that ruin your profit, it's the book printing costs! If you think your book will sell 100 units or less, then going with the least expensive option for publishing services is your best choice.

What kind of books can I create?

Self publishing gives you the freedom to create any kind of book you can imagine - 1 color, full color, hard cover, paperback, and many book sizes.

EVERY book gets a FULL COLOR cover at no extra charge. Please review our list of standard book sizes and page counts. Remember, your book will end up being a different page count than your manuscript - we'll help you determine how many pages your book will have. At Dog Ear we believe you should be able to easily find the answers to the question "how much does it cost to publish a book?"

Black & White - 1 color inside (black ink) with a full color cover

These books can be 48 to 740 pages in length (this ISN'T your manuscript length - but we can help you estimate your final page count). Paperback, hardcover, and hardcover with a dust jacket are available.

Full COLOR Books - FULL COLOR pages with a FULL COLOR cover

4 to 480 pages in length (this ISN'T your manuscript length - but we can help you estimate your final page count) - Paperback or hardcover.

Click here to see our available trim sizes and per unit printing prices.

How many pages will my book have when it is finished?

The final page count for your book will be dependent upon everything from your chosen trim size, the design we create for your book, the numbers of chapters in your book, the amount of figures and even the number of paragraphs.

Each and every book is unique - and we custom design each and every book. This means we can help achieve a specific page count (within reason) by using a variety of book design techniques.

We've included our AVERAGE characters-per-page counts for various trim sizes, based upon the total character count of a manuscript (including spaces.) This information can be found in MS Word under TOOLS / WORD COUNT - then look for "Characters- with spaces." To figure out your approximate page count (this is only a very rough guess) you would divide your total character count by the per-page-character-count of the trim size listed below.

* 5 X 8 trim - 1,400 characters per page
* 5.5 X 8.5 - 1,800 characters per page
* 6 X 9 - 2,100 characters per page
* 6.14 X 9.21 - 2,400 characters per page
* 7.44 X 9.69 - 2,800 characters per page

This information is meant to help with the question "How much does it cost to publish a book?" - to reiterate the statement at the top of the page - your book printing prices are the most important part of the cost to publish a book. It is the book printing cost that will affect your long term profit - and your ability to actually sell your book. If we can answer any other questions about how much it costs to publish a book, please send us a message and we'll get back to you promptly!