Skip to Content

Business plan

WritersServices Self-publishing

Income and expenditure

Treat the publishing of your book as a business proposition and look at the likely costs and possible income. See how much the book is going to cost you to produce and sell, then work out how many you need to sell to break even. The other important consideration is cashflow. The expenditures are nearly all incurred at the start of the project. The income stream might, if you are lucky, go on for years. 

Expenditure

These are the direct costs of self publishing.

Publication Set up costs with WritersServices Self-publishing – You can estimate these
Marketing costs We have some suggestions but every marketing plan is unique
Travel Signings and talks

You could set up a simple spreadsheet to estimate the income you will receive from sales. 

Replace the letters R and S with the amounts and put the formula into the table

   

Sales projection spreadsheet

 
Net receipts from retail sale of one book R      
Profit on single book from a signing or a direct sale S      
Estimated sales Qty 100 250 500 1000
  Retail sales R x 10 etc      
  Direct sales S x 10 etc      

You could work out the breakeven sales by adding another line

sales x quantity - cost of publishing      

Net receipts from retail sales: This is the amount you receive from booksellers selling your book, after deducting the cost of printing and the retail margins. You can estimate the possible book cost and the retail margin is between 30% and 40%.

Selling your book directly is potentially much more profitable: the net profit is just the cost of the book minus any overheads, such as the cost of post and packing. 

Marketing

 

Ordering


Does your book deserve the attentions of a professional  copy editor?

Writers Services offers a full range of editorial services.

Glossary & Acronyms

Home   Newsletter   What's involved? Glossary & Acronyms Some WPS titles Worldwide distribution

Main topic index

  1. Work out the design and set up cost
  2. Unit cost business & marketing plans
  3. Book order form and payment page

You are off to a very good marketing start with WPS as we link all our titles into Amazon and several of the biggest book distributors so your book can be ordered, delivered and the money collected worldwide.

Choose WPS as your publishing partner.

We operate from the UK and under the financial rules and regulations of the UK