Why Publication Format Matters

Publication Format in a subsidy publishing contract delineates who’s responsible for the appearance, price, production and manufacturing of the book. After you’ve written the darn thing, these aspects may be of little interest to you, but take the extra time to consider them. These facets make a huge difference. Here are four areas to evaluate.

First, check out their books. Go to Amazon and search the publishing company. Click on Books and type the company’s name into the Search field. Review them. How do they look, both inside and out? What are the cover prices? If the books appear lackluster or are overpriced, don’t give this subsidy publisher your business. Also, if you can’t find any of their books on Amazon, this may spell trouble. You’ll need to check further to see how their books are distributed.

Second, do you have input into the interior layout and size of the book? Besides text, a book’s layout – chapter headings, margins, line spacing, font size, overall measurement – determines the number of pages in a book. If author copies are based on printing costs, fewer pages equals lower printing charges, and lower printing charges increase the profit margin. Also, POD books, to stay competitive, should not be more than 300 pages. This can be problematic if you have a manuscript over 100K words. However, if you have input into the book’s formatting, layout adjustments can be made to accommodate more text.

Third, do you have a say in the pricing of the book? The price of the book is important for two reasons. Cover price affects the marketability of a book and, depending on the contract, determines the cost of author copies. The cover price is best set by the author. Subsidy publishers often overprice books so that they can overprice author copies. When a subsidy publisher refuses to tell you the cover price of your book before you sign the contract, don’t sign. Some publishers will not be so obvious, and instead say that it depends on the number of pages. Again, don’t settle for a non-answer. They’re in the publishing industry and should be able to look at a manuscript and come up with the number of pages with a fair amount of accuracy. To be competitive, a cover price must be comparable with traditionally published books.

Lastly, it is important to find out who distributes the book (i.e., Ingram Book Group, Baker & Taylor), and how much of a trade discount the subsidy publisher is offering. A discount of 55% off the cover price is generous and is an incentive for retailers to sell books. A hefty trade discount is one reason why some books on Amazon sell for less than retail. Again, when you review books on Amazon, check the cover prices. If they are discounted, you may sell more books.

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