Realistic Pricing of Books
I am curious about the people who have been selling their books on blurb.
What is a realistic price to put on them…I have two 400 page books with close to 900 photos in each one. If I double the price they would sell for $150.00 a piece…I want to sell books on blurb but I am sure there are those on here that have found how high they can go without stopping sales.
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I heartly agree with this. Though, I myself have just started a recent book and have never sold one of my own before, I do belive there needs to be a limit price depending on how many pages there are in the book itself. It would be very unfair to buy a twenty page book for $40 when I could by a three-hundred page book for only $29.99.
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Huge coffee table art books usually sell in the $80-100 range. For Blurb, that will cover the cost of production, but doesn’t leave much for you. My suggestion (and this is without looking at any of your work, or knowing what your book looks like), is to make more, smaller books, perhaps with tighter themes for your photo selection. Bring the cost of making the book down to where you are comfortable charging $60-79 as a price, and see how that goes. Of course, with Blurb, you could have both. Huge Book, vol 1 and Huge Book vol 2, each for $149, and then compare the sale of those two books to the sales of Meduim Photo Collection volumes 1 – 5.
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In my mind, there are several ways to do spread the gospel regarding your book: 1. Cut the number of pages in your book to a reasonable cost, therefore your uplist charge (what you charge for the book is reasonable to people) 2. Make multiple volumes (Part I, Part II) and then offer a multi-book discount or bundle 3. Factor in the lowest common denominator, you can sell more books at a lower cost, than more books at a higher cost 4. poll your target audience first, find out what they are willing to pay first for a high quality production book, most fancy photographer books in book stores by famous photographers go for 100.00 upon 100.00s of dollars. So we are saving the book production costs, and have some control of the book printing or the number of pages. I am new to Blurb and I just produced my first book, I see a few editing boo-boos but overall I am very impressed by the quality
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I have published two books through the University of Iowa Press. My royalty on each is 7% of what they sell it to bookstores for. One book sells for $24.95 (Harker’s Barns) so I get $.92 per book. While I had little control over design, the UI press took the risk in publishing my book and spent just over $25,000 to print 3,000 copies in the initial run. However, I have decided to self-publish because I control the entire design process and decide what my "royalty" should be. I am making a modest profit on each book by Blurb standards, but an excellent return by established Press standards. Also, remember that when a book is published by a Press, your book gets both an ISBN number (allows bookstores to order and sell your book) and a Library of Congress number, which puts your book into the national archive.
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Paticle, You have made an excellent addition to this thread in pointing out the low cost of web offset printing but the high up front cost to get it. Wow just $8.84 per book! After a $25K up front cost and 3000 copy inventory that you can store in your garage and let age. Blurb offers a wonderful opportunity for self publishing at a reasonable cost and as you pointed out, greater opportuntiy for profit. I also want to state that those for you that expect to sell large numbers of books on Blurb will be disappointed. The sales will come from your promotion through your direct sales or other web sites. Few people turn to Blurb’s Bookstore to buy a book unless you direct them to it for your book. Blurb is not Amazon or BN.
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I got a call last week from a local independent book store. The owner wanted to sell my book Forever Home: adopted dogs and the humans who love them (blatant plug) . I explained it costs 29.99 to print the book. After shipping to Alaska in bulk we get the shipping down to about $4-$5 dollars and I split the meager $4-5 with the local dog and puppy rescue (to buy more books and manage the fulfillement) . He then realized his markup would price it out of the market. Not only was I shocked by his misunderstanding of the purpose of the book , some fund raising but more awarness, I didn’t know what to say until it was too late. He also made the comment that "Self Publishing companies were a rip off" I asked him what he meant, and he replied the books cost too much. I estimated printing and binding for years I know that to get a book for $30 is a huge bargan. I added a printing blog to my web site, explaining costs for digital printing and offset printing after that. If anyone is interested it is at www.imageworkspub.com under the Printing link. I would think a Blurb book would be a great prototype to present a book to a publisher or investor to pay for a large offset run . Has anyone done that?
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Yes, just for the H of it I did. They wanted "their people" to redesign it & we could start for only a $20,000 investment? I don’t think so! I sell my 11X13 book for $90, & considering that I only made it so I could have one, & a few guys whose cars were featured in it could have one, I don’t mind the low sales numbers. Yesterday my doctor said he will be buying some for gifts. A partial layout is here with a link to the BS site. www.FrankCizek.com
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<font face="Verdana">I went to a bookstore to see if they would carry my book. They will take it on consignment—they won’t buy it, but will carry it and sell it. They take 40% of the selling price. Here are the numbers:
</font>
$30.00 Cost to print soft cover version
$ 5.00 My profit
$ 5.00 Shipping/book (if I order about five books at the same time)
———
$40.00 Fixed costs/book
$26.66 Bookstore’s share/book (40% of the selling price)
———
$66.66 Retail cost of the book
The bookstore takes 40%, which means if I want to get $40, the retail cost of the book must be $66.66.
The owner of the bookstore says that the competition—similar books—sell for around $24.00 (or less). That means the bookstore buys them for $14.40. I don’t see myself selling many books at these prices.
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well, if you compare prices you’ll see that blurb is quite expensive. you may get your book printed for much less; off course, if you are really interested in making a business out of it. your example is quiet clear.
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It was bit strange about the pricing on Blurb. I am from New Delhi and the shipping for even the 30pg costs me double the price of book. Is there possible option for cheaper shipping ?? Paying $45 for a 20-30pg book sounds a little too much to start with. I m sure there are people who may not be in US and are trying to find the orders going through Blurb. My book is about 120 pgs but I want to know the shipping options. I m sure there have to be the cheaper options as well. Moreover even after paying $45 there is no option for tracking.
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I have a simply question and need a simply understandable answer. Does anyony know are can figure out, "How much would it cost to have 3,000 softcover 8×10 (color or b/w) 80 magazine printed on an offset web press." Please include a website set where I could have this done and newstands or bookstore that I could get to carry my magazine. It’s a magazine that features (of course) picture beautiful women.
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I was stunned to find that I book that I wanted here costs over $300. The book is a photographic collection of just over 350 pages in a 13×11 inch size. I am new to this particular site, but I have never seen a $300 book anywhere. Is there any possibility that this is reasonable? Please advise.
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Chrisitinesas, I look at the pricing and a 11X13, 400 page would could about $160. Keep smiling.
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I’ve watched the topic for a while, here’s my two cents worth. I want to cover what Blurb is and not in regard to making a profit. 1) If you have a book that is for a mass market then Blurb is not the right fit. Think about this: Why would you or I buy a book for $100 when I can buy a similar book on Amazon for $25 (and qualify for free shipping)? In this case you have to seek out a company that will mass product you book for $3 per unit. You have two options, A) Self-publish or B) publishing company. Both have their pros and cons. What Blurb is and the way you can profit from it is for the limited market. So we are not in the business of selling book but rather selling specialized content and services. read this forum chat http://forums.blurb.com/forums/3/topics/74 Notice: Pat is a photographer that shoots ballet. Her service is the time and talent of photography and sells the books as added value. Kbradbury, sold his book to his small town. He offered content that only that town wanted or cared about. Small market, content specific to their desires. Scooter shoot motor bikes breaking the land speed record (COOL). He easily sells to those at the event, again smaller audience. Another way to profit is to make books for one off clients. An architect, who wants a portfolio, or a model, or a painter and the list goes on. In this case you exchange your time for $$$ $20 per hour $40 per hr $100 per hr. So do you have content that a small number of people want and are willing pay big money for it? Or can you offer a service of time skill to those who don’t have time and skill to do themselves? What do you think? Keep smiling
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This has been an interesting thread, I just recently joined the ranks of those wanting to print their own books. For me I was drawn to Blurb because it allowed the everyday person the chance to produce a book of apparent high quality, as opposed to the home-made or Kinkos spiral bound option. I cannot imagine that I will make more than 2 or 3 copies of my book. Dependent on the quality of my first project, I’ll probably make other such one-offs for my own purposes. I like to archive my work, whether it’s song lyrics, poster and CD cover designs or limericks. Blurb makes perfect, economic sense to me. I (wrongly) assumed that most people gravitated toward the site for similar reasons.
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I (wrongly) assumed that most people gravitated toward the site for similar reasons Simon, IMHO you were right in the first place, I think that most of the books in the store are there so it is easy for family and friends to order a copy with the hope of the odd bonus sale. There has been a thread recently on how many books did you sell (http://forums.blurb.com/forums/3/topics/74) I think it was just 7 people who sold more than a couple of books. Although the book I am working on now is for me (& family and friends), I have a variant of it in mind and will give selling it a try when Blurb release the mechanisms for international authors to share in the profits. But I will do others even if they are just for me, I am sooooo pleased with the quality of the trial book I received yesterday. ........Tony
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> In this case you have to seek out a company that will mass product you book for $3 per unit. Is it possible that a distribution company could purchase enough of your books through Blurb to have the price drop down to $3 per book? If so, what would the number of books be? 50,000? 100,000? More?
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They are the pictures you spent the time taking,and you spent the time to make the book too. Just remember that when you are adding the price. What is all your hard work worth to you? I add as much as I think nessecery for all the work I did behind the finished product.
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I make books for the professionals that do not have the time or talents to create a book themselves. Eamples: and artist and a building contractor. My time is $60-$90 dollars per hour. The book is just the demonstration of what they paid for. I have no desire to make big bucks off of the actual book, but boy is it worth my time to create them!
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Wow, this has really been a fascinating thread to read. Very inspirint, actually. I have a very narrow market myself (aviation) and most of my subjects are geared, at the broadest category, to events in Washington and Oregon. As other posters have mentioned, it makes great sense to go the self publishing route for me. I’m an unknown photographer at the time, trying to get my name out there. Seeing my work in a book keeps my morale up—even it it was published by myself—and enables me to show more people my work. The one book I do have published (through another service—- before I found Blurb) has lead to MANY sales in my other online stores that offer T-shirts, prints, etc. That in itself has paid for the book about 20 times over! I know I’m not going to get rich off of Blurb, but it sure is fun and satisfying for me.
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