PUBLISHING COST: BOOK PRINTING (POD/EBOOK) There are two basic ways to print books: print on demand, or com- mercial offset printing. In print on demand, the printing costs for orders are pulled out of the royalties, so there is no upfront publishing cost. Thus, anything you spend depends on the format. KDP charges nothing to set up paperbacks and eBooks. IngramSpark charges $49 for physical book (HC or paperback) setup, and $25 for eBook setup. The quality for IngramSpark tends to be about the same as KDP. • Low Quality: n/a • Acceptable: $0 and/or $25–$74 • High Quality: n/a • Best Possible: n/a PUBLISHING COST: BOOK PRINTING (OFFSET) Offset printing basically means hardcover. Offset printing is when the books are not printed on demand, but instead run in large batches, which is necessary for high-quality hardcovers. These tend to be higher quality, but they do cost much more, if for no other reason than you are paying for the printing of the book before it’s done. It’s almost impossible to quote a price here without knowing the quantity of books you’ll be ordering. For example, 1,000 books will usually cost you between $5 and $7 apiece, whereas if you print 5,000, the price goes down to around $3, and more than 10,000, the price often drops below $2. Furthermore, not everyone needs a hardcover. For this reason, we cannot really include this in the cost of publishing, but know that if you want high-quality hardcovers, then you will have to spend money on printing the books. hOW MUCh DOES iT COST TO SElf-PUBliSh A BOOk? · 337