If you are publishing with the Kindle Direct Publishing Platform, then there are four basic pricing models that you are going to want to be aware of. You have a great deal of power over what you set your price at when you use this platform, but the way that you come to decide upon a price varies based upon what you actually set your price at and whether you publish print books, e-books or both. Let’s take a look at each of these pricing models.
Fixed Cost Print Pricing
Fixed cost print pricing means that you pay a fixed price to print the book as well as a premium on the number of pages and the type of pages that you have. For example, you would be charged differently for color pages than for black and white pages. Amazon sets a specific fixed price to publish your book and then the standard cost for whatever pages you have would be multiplied by the number of pages that you have. So for example, if the fixed price was one dollar and the price per page for black and white was one tenth of one cent, then a 300 page book would be a premium of $.30 combined with the price of one dollar. This equals $1.30. However, this is much lower than Amazon’s actual rate.
Minimum List Price Print Pricing
Minimum list price is a method for determining price that ensures that you always make a profit no matter what your book costs to print and send out. So, the cost of printing the book is divided by the royalty rate for the minimum list price print books. That rate is 60%. So, a printing cost of $4.45 would be divided by 60% and the result added. That would make the minimum list price $7.42 and ensures that you always earn something on your books. Both of these models are only available for print book pricing within this platform.
EBook Publishing at $2.99 and Higher
If you publish an eBook and you price it at least $2.99 then you are able to earn a 70% royalty rate on every book that you sell – minus a very nominal fee (a penny or two) that Amazon charged for the electronic transfer of the document. The bigger the file is for your book the more they charge but it is never more than a few cents. Most people go with the 70% royalty rate because $2.99 is about the minimum price that you should be charging for an e-book anyway.
EBook Publishing at Less Than $2.99
Finally, there is a different pricing model if you choose to price your book at less than $2.99. For example, someone who prices their book at $0.99 will only earn a 30% royalty – or about $0.30 for each book sold. Compare that to 70% of $2.99 which comes out to be about $2.09. If you price your book at $1.99, you also only get 30% or around $0.59.