It’s free to publish a book on Amazon through their Kindle Direct Publishing program. While there is no set-up price for authors on KDP, delivery and printing costs are automatically deducted from royalties made on each sale. This no-upfront-payment system has allowed self-publishing authors to publish their ebooks with minimal financial risk.
In this post, we’ll look at the costs charged by Amazon when you publish on Kindle Direct Publishing.
The idea of online delivery fees may sound laughable. After all, it’s not as though Amazon has a fleet of underpaid drivers shuttling ones and zeros across the internet. However, KDP has to maintain the servers where ebooks are stored — so they charge their authors a “delivery fee” for each digital copy sold.
Ebook delivery fees are deducted from the author's royalties and apply to all titles on KDP’s 70% royalty plan. The delivery cost will depend on the ebook’s file size and the territory where the book is sold. For example:
To put this into perspective, let’s say that you’re publishing an 80,000-word thriller novel. With a full-color cover, but no images in the body. Using the Reedsy Book Editor, you can format that into a 2.5-megabyte EPUB file.
2.5MB x $0.15 = $0.375
If you price this ebook at $4.99 (which is fairly standard for fiction), your royalty at the 75% rate will be $3.74. After this, Amazon will deduct another 37 cents for delivery, representing 10 percent of your earnings.
The takeaway here is to be careful with your file sizes. Consider whether your book really needs graphics or images, because you’ll end up paying for them in the delivery fee.
Note: If you’re on KDP’s 35% royalty plan — usually due to your book being priced under $2.99 or above $9.99 — Amazon will waive the delivery fee.
KDP Print is Amazon’s print-on-demand solution — allowing you to turn out copies of your book as and when someone buys them on the Kindle store. Again, the cost of printing will be deducted from your royalties, meaning that you won’t have to go out of pocket to sell paperback copies to your readers. But what’s the damage going to be?
The biggest factors in determining your print costs will be:
Let’s use these numbers in a hypothetical example. If you’re printing a 300-page paperback book in black ink, your cost per copy printed will be:
$0.85 [fixed cost] + (300 x $0.012) [per page cost] = $4.45
Assuming you’re selling your book at $15.99 (fairly standard for paperback fiction in the US), your 40% royalty from Amazon will be:
$15.99 [retail price] x 40% [royalty rate] = $6.40
Now let’s deduct KDP’s printing cost for this title:
$6.40 [royalty] - $4.45 [printing cost] = $1.95 per copy sold.
So, $15.99 quickly turns to $1.95 once you take away the cost of selling, printing, and shipping your book.
Amazon will calculate and display your printing cost when you upload a title as well as suggest a minimum list price — so you won’t have to worry about accidentally losing money with each sale. But now you can see why most self-publishing authors make most of their money from selling ebooks, where they still keep 60-70% of the list price.
Read more about KDP’s printing costs on the Amazon website.
For many authors, that covers most of the costs they can expect to pay when publishing their book on Kindle. However, if you’re really looking to make the most out of Amazon’s sales platform, you may want to consider investing in advertising.
Remember to set aside part of your budget to edit, design, and format your book to a good standard. Download Reedsy’s 2023 Cost of Self-Publishing Report for an inside look at publishing service rates.
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How much does it cost to advertise your book on Amazon?
That’s sort of a “how long is a piece of string?” question: most ad platforms are happy for you to spend as much as you like. But let’s have a look at some minimum spends to see how you might budget for this promotional activity.
Sponsored product and Sponsored brand ads are displayed to users browsing targeted categories, keywords, or even titles. You can allocate a daily budget starting as little as $2 or $5 a day — and Amazon will only charge you when users click on the ads. As a result, most authors only end up spending a small portion of their daily budget.
(Screengrab: Sponsored product ads on Amazon.co.uk)You can also purchase spots on Kindle Lockscreens. This is where your ad will be served to readers using ad-supported Kindle devices (the ones that are a bit cheaper because you let Amazon advertise to you).
To book these ads, you need to commit to at least a $100 budget and set a bid for each user that “clicks” on the ad. The average cost-per-click bid on lockscreens is $0.15 to $0.20, according to Amazon.
(screengrab: advertising.amazon.com)Digital book advertising is a much more complicated beast than described in the section above. If you’re interested in learning more about advertising on Amazon, Facebook and Bookbub (the holy trinity of indie ad platforms), download this free book written by Reedsy co-founder Ricardo Fayet.
As you’ve seen, while it’s free of cost to publish your book on Amazon, there are certain charges you need to bear that will affect how you publish your book. By keeping your ebook files compact, choosing a cost-effective print option, and selecting a suitable price for your books, you can keep your KDP account in the black as you grow your readership on Amazon.
In the next section of this guide, we’ll take a detour into KDP Select and the potentially powerful promotional opportunities it can offer you as an author.
The cost to publish a children’s book can be as little as $300. More realistically, you can expect to pay at least $1,500, but fees can climb north of $5,000.
The prices vary because some authors do many of the steps needed for publication themselves, while other writers act like publishers and pay others to do the grunt work.
Unless you’re contracted to a publishing company, all of these costs are on you.
Writers can range anywhere from $15 to more than $150 per hour. Hiring an editor may cost between $300 and $600. Are they worth the cost? Professional writers and editors in the children’s book genre understand how to keep a child’s attention — which is exactly what you need.
You can spend as little as $50 to $300 for a Fiverr, Upwork or Guru freelancer to create your images. Established freelancers will charge more. Famous illustrators, such as Laura Watson, Nate Fakes and YoungJu Kim, will not only cost multiple thousands but may have waiting lists as well.
Children’s books must have a solid layout that keeps kids’ attention. Freelance layout designers charge as little as $20 and as much as $100.
Professional layout artists can be more expensive, charging $400 on the low end to more than $1,000 for involved projects. Make sure the designer uses the proper software, such as Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator.
How much does it cost to print a children’s book? Some methods don’t carry upfront costs. For example, publishing through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is free, but Amazon.com Inc. will deduct the printing cost from your profits when customers order a physical copy.
If you want to hire a printer, a 24-page full-color picture book will likely cost between $5 and $12 per copy. Additional pages, custom page sizes and other options can increase the price. The average price of children’s books is between $8 and $10, so the cheaper the production, the higher the profit.
Printers usually offer substantial discounts for ordering large numbers of books. Offset printing requires a minimum order of 500 but offers the most savings. Bulk purchasing also saves on shipping, though you’ll still have to get the books to customers.
If you choose print-on-demand, expect to pay around $5 to ship to customers.
To promote your book, build a strong online presence and heavily interact with potential readers on social media. You can also purchase social media-targeted ads that cost as little as a few dollars each.
Promoting through BookBub will cost you between $122 and $898, but it is a proven effective avenue. Amazon ads can also net more sales, but they take time to get results. It’s easy to spend $100 or more before you see an effect on your sales.
Finally, you can turn to book bloggers. Paying for promotion can cost as little as $40 or up to around $350 for a review, interview or similar service. Kirkus Reviews fees start at $350, and BookLife charges $399 for a professional review.
If you plan to do in-person appearances and book events, factor in the cost of fuel and travel, along with promotional materials such as signs and standups, which can cost $50 to $100.
Amazon KDP offers a 60% royalty for standard distribution and 40% for expanded distribution. It’s a good idea to get your book into libraries, too. Contact acquisitions librarians and ask about their policies.
Wholesalers can get your books into retail shops, but you’ll have to offer a large percentage of the profits, perhaps 50% or more, to get them to do business. Because the average price of children’s books is between $8 and $10, you’ll have to carefully consider whether working with a wholesaler is worth it.
You’ll need international standard book numbers (ISBNs) for your books to sell them. One ISBN is $125 through Bowker, while a set of 10 is $295. Because you’ll need an individual ISBN for each type of book, whether hardback, softback, audio or e-book, it pays to buy in bulk.
You’ll also need $65 for a copyright registration application. Make sure you have enough money to cover unforeseen costs, too, such as shipping for returned copies, warehousing your books or audiobook narration.
How much does it cost to publish a children’s book through a traditional publishing company? The costs are zero for authors. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a price. Royalties and creative freedom are lower when an author has to satisfy a publisher’s demands.
The self-published children’s book cost can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars to many thousands, but self-published authors enjoy more autonomy.
You can self-publish through Amazon KDP for free, but the royalty structure is similar to that of established publishing houses.
The most cost-effective way to guarantee you’ll get a high-quality book is by hiring an experienced printer like Print Bind Ship. We have extensive experience in helping authors bring their books to life. Our print-on-demand services can get freshly printed books to customers around the world quickly, and we can link to an author’s e-commerce site to make sales and returns fast and easy.
If you really want to wow your customers, use Print Bind Ship’s Mail Genius service, which offers incredible unboxing experiences and kitting services with custom notecards, cool offers and neat swag. You can even send handwritten notes for that personal touch. Contact Print Bind Ship and get started right away.
Illustrators can be found for as little as $50 to $300 through freelance sites such as Fiverr or cost multiple thousands for established artists.
How much does it cost to self-publish a children’s book?Depending on the quality and the amount of work you do yourself, the self-published children’s book cost can be anywhere from $300 to $5,000.
How much does it cost to publish a children’s book on Amazon?The cost is free, but Amazon charges royalties on every book sold.