Publishing Costs
When Twoedged Sword Publications started in 2003, we resolved to
publish an author's book free of charge and rely on book sales to
recoup the costs involved. However, this has not worked out in
practice and two years of four-figure losses have caused us to take
stock and, after much prayer, discussion and advice we have decided
that we must now charge authors a fee to cover our costs and some of
the time involved in setting up the author's book for publication. At
a future date we intend to provide a tariff of costs on this page for
author information, although each manuscript accepted for publication
will be individually assessed and the author provided with a fixed
price quotation.
For now, purely as a guide, the
following quotation was given to an author for publication of his
book. This manuscript was supplied typed on an old fashioned
typewriter and needed to be scanned and optical character recognition
performed on each page. This quotation sample will be removed as soon
as we have worked out a proper tariff.
A major part of publishing is the
initial hugely time-consuming review of the manuscript. This is an
area we will never be able to recoup our costs except through book
sales, so although we do not publish authors' books free any more, it
is still remarkably good value for the author.
|
Preparation |
Hours |
Cost |
|
Scan 93 typed pages and check for scanning mistakes. |
8 |
60.00 |
|
Format scanned text and simultaneously review for suitability |
30 |
225.00 |
|
Design cover |
24 |
180.00 |
|
Print and ship author proof copy text and cover artwork |
2 |
15.00 |
|
Incidentals (sort issues; changes to proof text etc.; proof re-issues) |
8 |
60.00 |
|
Sub-total (1) |
|
£ 540.00 |
|
Publishing Costs |
Costs |
|
Legal Deposit Copies |
25.00 |
|
Review Copies |
25.00 |
|
Author Book Allocation |
25.00 |
|
ISBN Number allocation |
1.30 |
|
Printer Set-up Fee |
60.00 |
|
Digital Catalogue Fees (two years) |
20.00 |
|
Sub-total (2) |
£ 156.30 |
|
