It costs authors between $500 and $4,800 to publish a book. The cost of publishing depends on the services you require (editing, cover design, formatting, and marketing), the genre, and the word count of your manuscript. From Reedsy’s 2022-2023 data, average prices range up to $2,000 for an editor and $750 for a book cover designer.
This guide will detail the average costs of publishing services rendered by Reedsy freelancers, representing some of the world's best and most experienced publishing professionals. For a closer look at the most up-to-date averages for each service, enter your email below and download our 2023 Cost of Self-Publishing Report.
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The Cost of Self-Publishing in 2023
Get an inside look at 2023 rates for professional self-publishing services.
Note: The averages in this guide are the result of over 20,000 quotes (adjusted for inflation) provided by professionals with years of experience in publishing. You can find cheaper alternatives, though they may not come with the level of expertise your project requires.
The average cost of professional editing on a 60,000-word book ranges between $2,400 and $3,400. This assumes one round of developmental editing plus a combination of copy editing and proofreading.
To see how much you can expect to pay for each kind of editing, you can use this pricing calculator, which draws from Reedsy’s most up-to-date averages.
Calculate the average cost of editing services for your genre.
Genre
Word count
Editorial Assessment
Developmental Editing
Copy Editing
Proofreading
Copy Editing + Proofreading
Note: The average rates for children’s book editing do not include picture books for reasons we will reveal later on.
If you’re not familiar with some of the types of editing mentioned in the calculator, here’s a quick breakdown:
Editorial Assessment. This is a popular and cost-effective first step for authors, ideal for those at an early stage of their rewrites. Editors offering an editorial assessment will usually:
Developmental Editing. A nose-to-tail structural edit of your manuscript for authors who have taken their book as far as they can by themselves. A developmental edit often includes everything in an editorial assessment, plus:
Copy Editing. A “fine-tuning” of your manuscript. This usually includes:
Proofreading. The final stage of the editorial process. As standard, a proofreader will:
As you can see, each type of editing asks the editor to examine your manuscript on a different level, and as such comes with a different price.
The genre of your book. Categories like historical fiction and nonfiction have the highest editing costs because they require fact-checking and a working knowledge of the subject matter. Similarly, editors for comics and children's books (genres with a much lower word count) will have a much higher per-word rate. A picture book might only be 1,000 words long — but the editor must handle each of those words with extra care. Plus, children’s editors couldn’t pay the rent if they charge just 1/80 the amount they would for an 80,000-word novel.
The state of your manuscript. Are you handing in a super-rough draft that you haven’t checked for typos? Or have you gone through multiple rounds of self-editing? Naturally, you can expect to pay less in the latter case.
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The density of your text. This perhaps applies more to copy editing. If you write like Ernest Hemingway (in short, spare prose), you can expect your copy editing fees to be lower than if you write like David Foster Wallace (with 10-page run-on sentences and footnotes galore).
The level of experience you require. An editor with decades of experience at a major publisher will cost much more than a newbie. As with most things in life, you might be looking for a happy medium.
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Now that you've got your editor sorted, it's time to make sure your book looks as good as it reads.
60% of professional covers from experienced designers on Reedsy cost under $750. The range of quotes you may receive from cover designers can vary enormously, depending on a few key factors.
Your designer’s relative experience. A novice book cover designer (one who may have recently transitioned from other types of design) might charge between $300 and $500 per project. Professionals with over a decade in the industry might offer quotes upwards of $800.
The style and complexity of the design. An elaborate illustrated cover would cost more than one that involves working with stock images — if only because of the different skills and time requirements. To find out more about why certain styles cost more, take a look at our guide to cover design.
The number of “rounds” your designer does. If their first iteration of your cover looks good, then you’re all set! But you may end up asking for a few tweaks or even an entirely different design, which will obviously raise the cost.
Whether it’s an ebook, paperback, or hardback cover. Print book covers require attention to dimensions as well as a spine and back cover design, which can add to the cost. Ebook covers, meanwhile, only require a front. If you are publishing in two or three of these formats, you can expect your designer's quotes to increase in line with the additional work required.
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However, the cover isn't the only part of a book that requires design. So let's take a look between the flaps.
Around 50% of book interior design projects on Reedsy cost between $250 and $750. But… this could also be free.
The vast majority of self-publishing authors can format their books with free tools like Reedsy’s Book Editor. However, certain types of books — especially those with a lot of graphics, images, and exotic formatting — do require the help of a professional book formatter.
For a detailed breakdown of average book formatting costs, download our 2023 Cost of Self-Publishing Report. But for now, let’s have a quick look at whether a free book formatting option is suitable for you.
If your book is a novel, memoir, short story collection, or nonfiction title — basically, any type of book that is primarily “words on pages” — then you’ll get professional-grade results using the free Reedsy Book Editor app.
You can import your manuscript file to the app, add your chapter breaks and configure your front and back matter in a matter of minutes. The app will preserve any formatting you’ve already done to the text (italics, bullet points, etc.) and automatically adjust your book's font, margins, and size. All you have to do is add your book cover files, hit ‘Export’, select your preferred styling option, and you’ll have an ePUB file (for ebooks) and a PDF (for your print editions).
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However, if your book requires a lot more specialist formatting — for example, a cookbook or an educational book packed with pictures and graphs — then you may need to invest in a professional book formatter.
You’ve probably noticed that there’s a pattern when it comes to the factors that affect the various costs of publishing a book — and book formatting is no exception. These factors are:
Level of experience. As always, veteran professionals bring a lot of experience and insight to the table (and they will charge accordingly).
Manuscript length. Longer books take more time to format — the designer isn’t only applying the design to the text, but also double-checking for widows, orphans, and other aesthetically unpleasing elements on each page.
How “graphically intense” the project is. Even the most simple cookbook will involve images that must be carefully placed and text that must be tastefully and legibly arranged. Formatting such a book will be more intensive and costly than formatting a novel.
Even a spartan title like Ottolenghi’s Simple requires careful design to make the recipes appealing, unintimidating, and easy to follow.Ultimately, you can expect to spend at least $500 on a professional formatting job, the same as cover design. If the way your book looks on the page is just as important as the words themselves, then this investment can be a no-brainer.
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The publishing process doesn't stop as soon as you've printed your first copy — there's plenty of marketing work to be done, which also comes with its own costs.
Publishing a book doesn’t stop once you’ve finalized your ebook and print editions. After all, what’s the point of publishing a book if nobody knows about it? As such, you may wish to plan for some of the following marketing activities:
Reviews will validate your book in the eyes of prospective readers. But without the ability to pick up Amazon reader reviews before your launch date, it’s important to land editorial reviews (which you can feature on your product page at any time). You can submit your book to hundreds of book reviewers on Reedsy Discovery for a write-up to be shared on your big day.
Cost: $50 to submit your book to Reedsy Discovery
Digital advertising is one of the few ways indie authors can quickly reach new audiences. If you’re fairly good with ‘the internets’, you can learn some of the basics of ad testing with our free courses on Facebook ads and Amazon ads.
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Cost: From $5 a day for Facebook ads. You can test out your potential audience with a small daily budget and scale up your budget once you see some success.
While it costs nothing to run a price promotion (where you temporarily discount your ebook to drum up some interest), you’ll need to make sure people know about it! For that, you may want to pay for listings on free/discount book sites that alert voracious readers to your promo.
Cost: From $15 to $120 per promotion slot. The actual cost will vary depending on the size of the promotion site and how competitive your genre is.
Every successful self-publishing author must have a strong grasp of marketing strategies and will spend a good part of their time marketing their books. If you’ve yet to master every aspect of this dark art, consider hiring a book marketer who can help you:
These services not only help you boost your launch, but they will give you the skills to continue your marketing efforts on your own.
Be careful: Indie book marketing is a grind. Anyone who offers a ‘magic bullet’ solution that promises you success with no work is likely scamming you.
For more insights into the average costs of publishing (including ghostwriting rates), remember to download Reedsy's 2023 Report.
For the last part of this guide to self-publishing, we'll look to the stars and meet some authors who have found great success as indie publishers.
How much does it cost to self-publish a book? Depending on how high-quality and how marketable you want the final product to be, self-publishing a book can cost between $100 and $5,000.
That’s quite the range! You’re likely looking for a cost breakdown to assess exactly how much it will be to publish your book.
In this comprehensive post, I’ll break down the individual costs of every line item in publishing a book. I’ll also talk a bit about the cost of going through traditional publishers.
How much money does an author make per book? Self-published authors make an average of $1-$5 per book on Amazon. Traditionally published authors make an average of $0.50-$2 per book. Bestselling authors can expect a six-figure advance against their royalties for each book.
How much does it cost to publish your first book? It can cost $300-$3,000 to publish your first book, depending on how high-quality you want your final product to be and the amount of marketing you do. The cost of self-publishing changes with different genres.
In this article, you will learn:
Links in this article may earn me a small commission. This is at no extra cost to you, and it doesn’t affect my opinion. However, it does help me continue writing these handy articles that anyone can read for free!
What is the average cost to publish a book? The average cost to self-publish a high-quality book is between $2,000 and $4,000. Many authors spend a lot more or a lot less, depending on their marketing strategy and how much editing and proofreading they pay for.
The average cost to traditionally publish a book can be close to nothing before marketing because editing, formatting, cover design, and proofreading are covered by the publisher. However, marketing costs can still range from $500 to $10,000.
Do you have to pay to publish a book? No, you do not have to pay a publisher to publish a book. You do have to pay for editing, cover design, and marketing.
What is the difference between a self-published book and a traditionally published book?
If we assume that $3,000 is an average cost to self-publish a book, here are all the genres that will cost more or less than the average book:
After you finish writing the first draft of your book, here are all the steps to publishing a book, as well as how much they cost:
You need to hire a professional editor to edit your book. This may end up as your heftiest cost: $200-$2,000. If you can’t find a good deal or friends and family-type discount, you might be looking at the higher end of that price range.
Yes, you have to pay a professional editor to edit your book (unless you can somehow get a legit editor to look at your book for free). Every little typo, grammatical error, and misplaced word increases the risk of a reader closing the book and leaving a bad review.
Developmental editors help authors shape the big picture of their book, so they cost more: $0.07-$0.12 per word. You don’t need developmental editing, but it can be a lifesaver.
Copy editors are a necessary expense for self-publishers. They typically ensure that spelling is immaculate, grammar is exceptional, sentence structure is flawless, and some copy editors even fact-check your work. Copy editing may cost between $0.02 and $0.04 per word.
Proofreaders should be the last step before hitting the Publish button. Hiring a proofreader can cost $0.01-$0.02 per word.
Your editing pricing will increase with each of these caveats:
I wrote a comprehensive guide on Choosing the Best Editor to make this part of the publishing process easier for you.
On the Reedsy Marketplace and other websites, you can look for freelancers which can decrease the total cost of professional editing. Beware — you usually get what you pay for.
An index is the long list of info in the back of a book that helps readers find information within that book. Indexing a book may cost between $50-$2,000, depending on the length of the book. $500 is a typical average you can expect to pay for an indexer to index your book.
I recommend indexing your book if it is nonfiction. Fiction books typically do not contain an index.
If you want to DIY your indexing, there are affordable software downloads available like PDF Index Generator. They offer a free trial before buying their $69.95 indexing software.
You could also hire a book indexing service, such as Brookfield Indexing (available in North America) who charges $3-$6 per page.
You have to format your book, but it doesn’t have to cost very much. DIY book formatting software costs $0-$249.99. Book formatting services can cost up to $1,000, but can sometimes be bundled with book cover design services for overall savings.
Why you have to format your book: Formatting includes margins, headers, typesetting, page numbers, spacing, and so much more. If any of these elements doesn’t look professional, many readers will put your book down, leave a bad review, and badmouth your book to all their peers.
If you are a very technical person with a ton of spare time, invest in book formatting software like Atticus or Vellum. Learn how to use whatever software, and don’t stop formatting till every inch of your eBook (and print book, if applicable) looks perfect.
If you are not a detail-oriented person, or you are short on time, hire a professional book formatter. It’s more expensive, but it will probably take less time overall, and you’ll be sure that your book is as professionally formatted as possible.
FYI: book formatting is also called interior design on some websites.
Trying to land a book deal? You may need to hire a professional to format your manuscript when you send it off to literary agents. This isn’t necessary for self-publishers.
Cost of DIY book formatting software:
Bonus: I don’t recommend MS Word for book formatting, but if you’re going to use it, check out Amazon’s video tutorial on MS Word book formatting.
If you do your own formatting, there are tons of templates that you can download off of the Internet. IngramSpark, microsoft.com, and other websites offer free templates.
Cost of book formatting services:
Unless you are a professional graphic designer with experience making professional-looking book covers, you need to hire someone else to make your book cover. Book cover design can cost $200-$3,000. You can get amazing book covers for under $1,000.
Your book cover design is your number one marketing tool. When people browse Amazon, all they’ll see is your book cover and title in the search results. If you have an unprofessional, messy book cover design, readers will think the rest of your book is amateurish and not worth their time.
Check Out 100 Covers HereOne of the most affordable cover design companies that I recommend is 100 Covers. Not only are they cheap, but they do excellent work.
Book cover design will be more expensive if you:
DIY cover design options:
Book cover design services:
It is normal to pay these services half upfront and half once you approve the final design.
Book marketing can cost anywhere from $0 to $10,000 — it all depends on how much you want to spend. Reminder: You have to market your book and yourself as an author, even if you spend nothing but your time.
Check out my 71 Tips on Book Promotion.
First-time authors typically spend less than $300 on their book marketing. As you publish more books and grow your audience, your marketing budget should get bigger.
Here are some handy free marketing suggestions:
However, there are some common costs if you want to sell your book to a wide audience:
Read more about book marketing costs in my Book Marketing 101 article.
Other costs to publish a book include:
How much does it cost to publish a book in the United States? It usually costs between $500 and $5,000 to publish a book in the United States. A lot of that cost comes from hiring an editor, book designer services, and marketing.
The average self-published book costs about $2,000 to publish and market. First-time authors typically spend less on their first book and increase their budget with each subsequent book.
Feeling overwhelmed? You’re not alone. Check out Kindlepreneur’s Book Marketing Show podcast to learn from experts about selling your own book. The more your book sales soar, the more all these costs are justified. Cheers to your finished product!
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