$13.99???

Is that the regular lulu price (from their own website) or the amazon price which would be about double that? If it's a normal length book I'd be surprised you got the amazon vended price that low as $20 or more is common! The price is a turn off but I have bought POD's for that much and even a little more when I know the author and was pretty sure it would be a good book. I know, as a reader, that's just what you have to pay for POD. There are slightly cheaper PODs with more discreet imprint names that have slightly lower prices and might sell a few more copies.

The disadvantage of POD is cheap/no startup fees, but expensive final books. Just how it works. If you think you're going to sell a lot of them, it's always going to be cheaper to have them printed in advance (although obviously, that's risky, and involves start-up capital)

To sell via amazon you need to use the ISBN plus service and you'll find the amazon list price to be much higher. They have another calculation for that price if you hunt around the lulu website you'll find it--probaly using ISBN as a keyword will bring it up. I suggest going to a POD comparison webioste to see if you can get a better deal. Often to get a good (or at least bearable) cover price you need to move to a fee-charging POD like Aventine.

Richard said:

The disadvantage of POD is cheap/no startup fees, but expensive final books. Just how it works. If you think you're going to sell a lot of them, it's always going to be cheaper to have them printed in advance (although obviously, that's risky, and involves start-up capital)

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Unless you start your own imprint and go directly through a company like Lightning Source, which deals only with publishers. Then it's not too bad.

$13.95 is my cover price on Amazon. If that is your price on Lulu, you need to double it for your list price on Amazon, and then Amazon may offer a discount of say 25% to the buyer off of that--so it might be priced at like $20 on Amazon. Lulu has a pricing example for external sales you can use to see what your price would be. I found Lulu to set a higher cover price for the same whole dollar royalty for sales on Amazon than fee-charging PODs. My cover price is, as I said, $13.95, and I make about $2.60 per sale on Amazon. That wouldn't be possible for the same length book from Lulu.


$13.95 is a steep price, and probably has hurt my sales some--but it's not a great deal higher than most trade paperbacks.

EminemsRevenge said:

For those of you who have been following the saga of my Work in Progress, i am now in the editing phase will soon be submitting it to lulu.com for general release

With a pre-existing audience of about 500 i don't think i'll be fleecing them, but as a disinterested reader, do you think that you would buy a book off of Amazon if it had an ***-kicking cover and good premise for $13.99???

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If you have a pre-existing audience of 500, why not self-pub using an offset printer (small run) or send it to lighting source yourself? Much cheaper that way. And you can get 10 ISBNs for $250 (I think).

And yes, they're correct when they say you need to multiply the Lulu price by 2 to get your outside (Amazon) retail price: http://www.lulu.com/help/node/view/295

So for a $13.99 Lulu book, you should look at perhaps $20 with discounts... -- still pretty steep for a paperback. That's the problem with going POD -- the cost of the books. Thus, if you think you'd sell at least 500, you should consider a small run offset printer...

maestrowork said:

If you have a pre-existing audience of 500, why not self-pub using an offset printer (small run) or send it to lighting source yourself? Much cheaper that way. And you can get 10 ISBNs for $250 (I think).

And yes, they're correct when they say you need to multiply the Lulu price by 2 to get your outside (Amazon) retail price: http://www.lulu.com/help/node/view/295

So for a $13.99 Lulu book, you should look at perhaps $20 with discounts... -- still pretty steep for a paperback. That's the problem with going POD -- the cost of the books. Thus, if you think you'd sell at least 500, you should consider a small run offset printer...

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Pretty close. Here are the formulas:


lulu price = $4.53 + (.02 * PAGES) + (ROYALTY * 1.25)

Suggested Retail price = $3.12 + (.04 * PAGES) + (ROYALTY * 2.5)


So, if you have a 250-page book, and you want a $3 royalty, the lulu price will be 13.28. If you want a 25% royalty, the lulu price will be 13.86. If you want to sell it from Amazon and make $3, the retail price will be $20.62. If you’re willing to sell it on Amazon for a $1 royalty, then the retail is $15.62. Of course, Amazon could discount it, since they’re getting it at 40% below those prices.


For a 400 page book and a $5 royalty, the lulu price is $14.47, while the outside retail price is a whopping $31.62!


So, large royalties and high page numbers kill you when you go to Amazon from lulu.

For the same size book through booksurge:
6x9, 250 pages: $16.99 at Amazon ($4.25 royalty)
6x9, 400 pages: $20.99 at Amazon ($5.25 royalty)

The idea of going to Amazon is the *potentially* you'll get more sales than selling directly from Lulu (otherwise, why bother? Just tell people to buy from Lulu). That's what distribution means -- sales. So with that in mind, you should set your retail price as low as possible and perhaps get a lower royalty so you can push more sales through the Amazon channel. No one is going to buy a $25 paperback. $19.95 is pushing it.

So Julie, it looks like Booksurge has a better deal than Lulu as far as Amazon is concerned?

maestrowork said:

The idea of going to Amazon is the *potentially* you'll get more sales than selling directly from Lulu (otherwise, why bother? Just tell people to buy from Lulu). That's what distribution means -- sales. So with that in mind, you should set your retail price as low as possible and perhaps get a lower royalty so you can push more sales through the Amazon channel. No one is going to buy a $25 paperback. $19.95 is pushing it.

So Julie, it looks like Booksurge has a better deal than Lulu as far as Amazon is concerned?

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That’s the way I see it. As for as flexibility and price, lulu has it (on their own site), but if you want a wide audience that only Amazon can deliver, then booksurge is the best choice. After all, Amazon sales are 5x that of B&N. And where else but booksurge can you get a 25% royalty at Amazon with a reasonable book price?

Julie Worth said:

And where else but booksurge can you get a 25% royalty at Amazon with a reasonable book price?

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Well, my book is fairly reasonably priced--$13.95 for a trade paperback--and my royalty translates to about 18% of retail (50% of net). Can you get 25% of retail at Amazon and have a cover price under $14 (for say 260 pages) with booksurge? That's quite good.

skylarburris said:

... Can you get 25% of retail at Amazon and have a cover price under $14 (for say 260 pages) with booksurge? That's quite good.

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Yes, the 25% is terrific, but you're not going to get it priced under $14 at Amazon, unless they discount it*. If you look at booksurge's published rates, you'll see that they have a price break at every fifty pages, so you'll want to finagle your 260 pages down to 250 pages. Then the question is size. Unlike lulu, which has a single rate for the four or five sizes available, booksurge has a huge number of finished sizes, but it makes most sense to specify the largest size within a given price group. Those are given letters--sizes A, B, and C. The maximum size in each group is:


A--5.25x8
B--6x9
C--7x10


For 250 pages, the retail price is:
A--$14.99
B--$16.99
C--$20.99


Obviously, you won't need 250 pages for group C, maybe just 200, but still, my impression is that size A makes the most sense. And I like that smaller size better anyway, since it's more convenient.

*Amazon is discounting at least some books from booksurge. Taking one at random from their bookstore ($15.99) and looking at the price on Amazon ($10.87). A 32% discount! This is a bigger discount than the author gets buying directly from booksurge (30% for 1-9 books), so in this case, it would make more sense to buy from Amazon. And it's good for the Amazon rankings, besides.

Julie Worth said:

*Amazon is discounting at least some books from booksurge. Taking one at random from their bookstore ($15.99) and looking at the price on Amazon ($10.87). A 32% discount! This is a bigger discount than the author gets buying directly from booksurge (30% for 1-9 books), so in this case, it would make more sense to buy from Amazon. And it's good for the Amazon rankings, besides.

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That example I took from booksurge's front page. When I went in and looked at the middle of the pack, I found that it wasn't typical. For most of them, there was no discount at all.

For the same size book through booksurge:
6x9, 250 pages: $16.99 at Amazon ($4.25 royalty)
6x9, 400 pages: $20.99 at Amazon ($5.25 royalty)

For same book through Diggory Press: (and they have very low setup fees and a high quality product and cheaper author copies than even lulu)

250 pages @ $16.99 retail
16.99=$5.81 royalty (and you can make the amazon price lower to whatever you want)

400 pages @ $20.99 retail
=$6.56 royalty (and you can make the amazon price lower)

logos1234567 said:

For the same size book through booksurge:
6x9, 250 pages: $16.99 at Amazon ($4.25 royalty)
6x9, 400 pages: $20.99 at Amazon ($5.25 royalty)

For same book through Diggory Press: (and they have very low setup fees and a high quality product and cheaper author copies than even lulu)

250 pages @ $16.99 retail
16.99=$5.81 royalty (and you can make the amazon price lower to whatever you want)


400 pages @ $20.99 retail
=$6.56 royalty (and you can make the amazon price lower)

Click to expand...

That looks even better. Could you provide a link to their price list? I can't seem to find it.

http://diggorypress.com/privacy.php?

their US dollar prices are at the bottom of the page on this link. Diggory Press are based in the UK but they print and distribute in the USA too so they will print and mail your books from the USA if you are in the USA and pay your royalties in us dollars, and print and mail them from the UK if you are in the UK (like me) and pay us Brits in £sterling. They are a good honest company who I can highly recommend who are upfront about their prices and what they are do. And they are really quick too!

logos1234567 said:

http://diggorypress.com/privacy.php?

their US dollar prices are at the bottom of the page on this link. Diggory Press are based in the UK but they print and distribute in the USA too so they will print and mail your books from the USA if you are in the USA and pay your royalties in us dollars, and print and mail them from the UK if you are in the UK (like me) and pay us Brits in £sterling. They are a good honest company who I can highly recommend who are upfront about their prices and what they are do. And they are really quick too!

Click to expand...

All I got from that page was that the author’s price for the first book (250 pages) would be $24.92, and then it would go down as the author purchased more copies. There was some mysterious talk about retail price (the only important thing, of course), but I wasn't able to figure out how it was calculated, or what it would be. Where did you get that $16.99?

Julie - if you read it you can set the retail price and discount at whatever you like (minimum allowable discount is 25%)

Quote: We pay you for each bookshop sale the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) that you set less the wholesale discount that you set less $4.80 each copy. So for example your book’s RRP is $20...less 25% wholesale discount is $15…less $4.80 fulfilment copy price, your royalty is $10.20 on each sale ...

They quote $4.80 based on a 108 page book -so if your book is 250 pages that is 142 pages more @ 1.5 cents per page as they show on the price list so your fulfilment rate (ie the printing and shipping charge for trade sales through them) is $4.80 plus (142*1.5) = $6.93, right?

16.99 - 25% discount is 12.74 less 6.93 is 5.81 royalty
14.99 -25% is 11.24 - 6.93 = $4.31 etc etc

logos1234567 said:

Julie - if you read it you can set the retail price and discount at whatever you like (minimum allowable discount is 25%)

Quote: We pay you for each bookshop sale the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) that you set less the wholesale discount that you set less $4.80 each copy. So for example your book’s RRP is $20...less 25% wholesale discount is $15…less $4.80 fulfilment copy price, your royalty is $10.20 on each sale ...

They quote $4.80 based on a 108 page book -so if your book is 250 pages that is 142 pages more @ 1.5 cents per page as they show on the price list so your fulfilment rate (ie the printing and shipping charge for trade sales through them) is $4.80 plus (142*1.5) = $6.93, right?

16.99 - 25% discount is 12.74 less 6.93 is 5.81 royalty
14.99 -25% is 11.24 - 6.93 = $4.31 etc etc

Click to expand...

BOOK PRICE AT AMAZON--Booksurge wins

Comparing Booksurge to Diggory at Amazon, Booksurge wins, but not by much.

A Booksurge book is sold to Amazon at a 40% discount, but you still get 25% on the Amazon retail price. That’s the deal, because Booksurge is owned by Amazon.

So, for a 6x9 250-page book selling at $16.99, you make $4.25.

Set the same retail price through Diggory, $16.99. Now you have to discount that by 40% if you want to sell to Amazon (I think), so that leaves you $10.19. Subtract from that the fulfillment of $4.80, and that leaves you $5.39, and subtract from that $2.13 (142 excess pages times .015), leaving $3.26.

So, for that $16.99 retail price, Booksurge gives you 25% at Amazon, while Diggory gives you 19%.

To get a $4.25 royalty at Diggory through Amazon, you need to price it at $18.63 (or $23.75 if you use lulu).

It you intend to sell to bookstores, Diggory will probably win, because Booksurge will only give you a 10% royalty, and that's on the wholesale price. So, for a $16.99 book discounted by 40%, you make a royalty of only .6x16.99x.1 = $1.02. Not so good. But bookstore sales are iffy in any case, since the books are non-returnable.


AUTHOR SALES--lulu wins
To buy a single book from lulu: $9.54
To buy one hundred books: 7.79/book

To buy a single book from Booksurge: $11.89
To buy one hundred books: $8.50/book

To buy a single book from Diggory: $25.92
To buy one hundred books: $10.48/book


FULFILLMENT TIME--Booksurge wins
Booksurge: 2 days
Lulu: 5 days
Diggory: ?

No, 25% discount is fine for amazon so Diggory wins. Unlike Booksurge though, the discount/price per sale is the same for all orders regardless of where they come from whether it be amazon or a bookstore so again Diggory wins.


AUTHOR SALES--lulu wins
To buy a single book from lulu: $9.54
To buy one hundred books: 7.79/book

To buy a single book from Booksurge: $11.89
To buy one hundred books: $8.50/book

To buy a single book from Diggory: $25.92
To buy one hundred books: $10.48/book

No, you have this wrong.Where the heck are you getting those figures from? Confused by your math!

Diggory Press:
100 copies $3.52 each plus p+p for a 108 page book so 250 pages is $5.65 per copy ($3.52 plus 142 extra pages @ 1.5 cents extra per page) = US$5.65

This is $2.14 per book more royalty than lulu

If this is your second order with Diggory, then the cost per book per each single copy is no more than $7.13, $2.41 cheaper than lulu and still 66 cents cheaper than lulu's price for 100 books. WOW!

So its way cheaper than Lulu for everything.

Fulfilment time - 24 hours on amazon.com, author copies 3-7 days

logos1234567 said:

No, you have this wrong.Where the heck are you getting those figures from? Confused by your math!

Diggory Press:
100 copies $3.52 each plus p+p for a 108 page book so 250 pages is $5.65 per copy ($3.52 plus 142 extra pages @ 1.5 cents extra per page) = US$5.65

This is $2.14 per book more royalty than lulu

If this is your second order with Diggory, then the cost per book per each single copy is no more than $7.13, $2.41 cheaper than lulu and still 66 cents cheaper than lulu's price for 100 books. WOW!

So its way cheaper than Lulu for everything.

Fulfilment time - 24 hours on amazon.com, author copies 3-7 days

Click to expand...

<sighs> I'm getting the figures from the same page you are, but you're missing the line about fulfillment:

Fulfilment price $4.80 per copy.
(This stays constant and does not alter according to how many books you purchase.)

But the fulfilment price is the cost deducted for sales made direct by Diggory Press to amazon etc...it is a separate figure to and is nothing to do with the cost for author copies...the 'fulfilment price stays constant' means if you sell one copy or 100 to amazon etc over the year you'll make the same royalty each time on each sale. This is normal with pod publishers.

And I still do not understand how you get your figures for author copies? Are you mistakenly adding the figure for author copies and the fulfilment prices together?

logos1234567 said:

But the fulfilment price is the cost deducted for sales made direct by Diggory Press to amazon etc...it is a separate figure to and is nothing to do with the cost for author copies...the 'fulfilment price stays constant' means if you sell one copy or 100 to amazon etc over the year you'll make the same royalty each time on each sale. This is normal with pod publishers.

And I still do not understand how you get your figures for author copies? Are you mistakenly adding the figure for author copies and the fulfilment prices together?

Click to expand...

Do you work for Diggory by any chance? I ask because their web page has totally changed from the last time I looked at it just a few days ago, clarifying these very issues.

So, going by what it says now, our 6x9 250 page book would net a royalty at Amazon of (16.99)x(.6) - (4.80+(0.015x(250-108))) = $3.26, or 19%.

And the author's cost for 100 books is 5.62/book, which is lower than either lulu or booksurge.

I recently put a book on Amazon through booksurge. It cost $99 using the express service, and was on Amazon's site one week after approval--which was two weeks after I started the process. It would have been a few days less, but I had to make a change in the cover. Another thing Amazon does for booksurge customers is to handle the search within the book stuff, but that takes several weeks more.

From the first copy I got from booksurge, I'd say their quality is a shade less than lulu's printer (colorcentric). But it's comparable to most books out there. I haven't seen any diggory books.

No I don't, although I have now published a couple of books with them (their quality is excellent) and my testimony of praise is on their website along with a few other glowing comments from Diggory Press's other authors. (FYI my comment is the last one on the page ).

I notice they have been rehauling their site over the last few weeks, so I guess things will change again in a few days time. I know also there's a few other authors who use this board that publish with Diggory Press, so maybe they told them to clarify, who knows, I didn't.

Unlike Booksurge, there is no need to pay any express fee to Diggory Press to get on amazon quickly: your book will be still be listed on the amazons within one to two weeks from payment with Diggory Press's normal service.

And I still don't understand your math:

So, going by what it says now, our 6x9 250 page book would net a royalty at Amazon of (16.99)x(.6) - (4.80+(0.015x(250-108))) = $3.26, or 19%.


Why are you multiplying it by .6 - that would be the case if you gave 40% discount, but you only need to give 25% through them? I give 25% for my books on amazon and make sufficient sales on that and have no problems, so why should you?


16.99-25% = 12.74 - 6.93 (which is 4.80+2.13 being (0.015x 142)) = 5.81 royalty