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By way of background, I've published several books (some textbooks, some aimed at general audiences), all with major publishers, some of them quite successful and others not.

I have on my desk a contract from what I believe is a well-regarded science publisher for a short book that I believe should be marketable both as a supplementary college text and to a general audience. However, they want to set a remarkably high price (roughly 90 US dollars for a roughly 130 page book) that I believe will effectively cut off the general audience sales.

An alternative is to self-publish through Amazon (and maybe Ingram). I am well on the road to this, in that I have camera-ready copy in what I believe to be a quite appealing design, I've gone ahead and created a cover I'm very happy with, and am pretty sure I have a good understanding of the process. I'd set a price of somewhere around $24.

A reason not to self-publish: One difference between me and the publisher is that the publisher has a lot of experience selling to the academic market (and some limited experience selling to a broader market), and in particular knows who's teaching the relevant course so they can send marketing materials. I don't think I can do a very good job of duplicating that.

A reason to self-publish: In addition to controlling the price, I'd gain some experience that might be valuable the next time I have a book to sell.

One more alternative: I could talk to other publishers, but I am disinclined to do that because it's not my favorite way to spend time. Also I've promised to make a decision on the current offer within the next couple of weeks, so pursuing other options at any length might mean walking away from this one.

Finally, the questions:

  1. Are there other considerations I'm not thinking of?

  2. Are there other alternatives I'm not thinking of?

  3. Is there an obvious best choice here?

One more thing: The book is essentially in final form, and has been skillfully edited by excellent editors who work for me. The publisher would of course run this by an editor, but has agreed with me that essentially no editing is necessary. So that, at least, is not a consideration.

Followup: I approached another publisher which I believe is considered just a hair less prestigious than the one described above, and which I also believe has considerably more experience in the non-academic market. They want to set a price of $37 for the hardcopy and "considerably less" (by an amount to be determined) for the e-book. This still far exceeds the $24 (US) or so that I'd have charged as a self-publisher but greatly beats the $90 (for both the hardcopy and the e-book) that the original publisher had in mind. They were delighted to take this and I've signed a contract.

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    Have you communicated your price-point concerns to the publisher? And have they replied with justification? Two things are likely: firstly, that they have more experience in the market and know what it will bear; secondly, that they may just have a "standard" price for textbooks that doesn't account for the polished copy they are starting with (obviously they'll want to re-typeset to house style, and probably commission their own cover art). You might be able to negotiate on cover price, perhaps by taking more of the risk (royalties vs lump sum payment). Commented Aug 1 at 15:30
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    @TobySpeight : I have been planning to have this conversation, and will soon, but I would prefer to think in advance of that conversation about what my options and priorities are.
    – WillO
    Commented Aug 1 at 17:34
  • If you do end up going the self-publication route, I would strongly suggest hiring a designer to get the layout right. Typesetting and cover design are skills, and while some people do have a natural flair for them, it’s often quite plain to see when a self-published book was not professionally laid out, and it has a real, measurable impact on how much the reader enjoys and takes away from the book. Hiring a designer won’t be cheap, but if it’s 130 pages of not-too-complex text and a simple cover, it shouldn’t be prohibitively expensive either. Commented Aug 1 at 20:44
  • But overall I agree with Ben’s answer that the arguments in favour of a publisher outweigh those against. Even so, as someone who himself works for an academic publisher (albeit in Europe and within the humanities), $90 for a 130-page non-specialised book aimed at students and the general public rather than researchers is far too much. If the publisher is suggesting that kind of pricing, it sounds like they’re perhaps not expecting the book to do well. Commented Aug 1 at 20:49
  • Agree with Janus Bahs about getting the layout (meaning composition) done properly. The layout needs to be checked very carefully by a second person who is familiar with all the tiny details of layout conventions, like end-of-line word divisions. As an editor, I've checked proofs for quite a few self-published books and have never found fewer that 300 errors even when the book was professionally composed. Every word needs to be checked in each proof until it's perfect. It takes the compositor many tries to get from 300 to 0 errors---up to six proofs. It can make you crazy.
    – Eggy
    Commented Aug 5 at 2:43

1 Answer 1

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The name of the publisher is a selling point in university textbooks. As a student I would never buy a self-published textbook (unless the author is an eminent authority or the book was required reading).

In academia, the publishing process is still considered a useful and functioning filter. Books by reputable publishers or papers in peer-reviewed journals are generally considered more trustworthy than self-published books and papers.

Your publisher sets a high price for your book because they expect low sales figures. The high price is supposed to finance the production cost. If they know their market well, this means that you probably will have a hard time selling that book by yourself.

To successfully self-publish non-fiction, you need a platform: a strong (social) media presence. If you don't have a platform to sell from, your book won't sell.

If talking to publishers is not your favourite way to spend your time, I don't think marketing your book will be your favourite way to spend your time either. And without an immense marketing effort, self-published books don't usually sell.

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  • Agreed that higher prices are often set to offset production costs, but $90 for a regular 130-page book is so outrageously high that the publisher cannot be expecting to sell enough copies to even do that. That sounds like a ‘dumping’ strategy (i.e., “we’re never going to sell more than ten of this book anyway, so let’s just try to recoup at least something by jacking up the price”). Commented Aug 1 at 18:57
  • I’ll admit I’m unfamiliar with academic publishing in the natural sciences, but I work for an academic publisher (within the humanities, and in Europe rather than the US), so I’m not unfamiliar with the process. I will also note that most of the titles in the Springer catalogue you linked to which are priced along those lines are a lot bigger than 130 pages, and those which are similarly priced are mostly highly specialised titles aimed at research. The ones targeted at students or the general public (like the asker says his is) are generally more cheaply priced. Commented Aug 1 at 19:53

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