Setting the price for your book
The pricing of your book is calculated thus:
Note that these costs only pertain to the publication of the book and do not include those of any pre-press services such as those involved with editing, illustration, etc. that you may choose to avail of.
Price of book =
Production Costs + Author's Revenue + CinnamonTeal Commission
Production Costs: These are the costs of producing each book and represent the fixed costs associated with each book. They depend on the number of pages in each book, the size of each book, the type of cover chosen and the binding of the book.
For example, for a 200-page paperback of size 8"x5", having black and white pages and a coloured cover and which is perfect bound, the production costs would be calculated as:
Production Costs =
Cost of printing (Rs. 0.60 per page) + Cost of cover (Rs. 60.00)
For example, for a 200-page book, the printing costs would be
Rs. 120.00 (200 x 0.60)
+Rs. 60.00
------
Rs. 180.00
While the above rates are for a book size of 5" x 8", for other rates click here.
Author's Revenue: This component is decided by you, the author. You decide how much revenue you wish to earn off the sale of each book.
CinnamonTeal Commission: will be 25% of the Author's Revenue. The CinnamonTeal commission is therefore 20% of the profit made on each book i.e. the author will always garner 80% of the profit made on each book. Such a profit margin is unheard of in conventional publishing.
As an example, consider a book whose production cost is Rs. 180/-. The author may choose to earn Rs. 40/- of each book. While computing the cost of the book, therefore, 25% of the Author's Revenue, i.e. 25% of 40 = Rs.10/- is added to the price of the book.
The price of the book is then computed as:
Rs. 180.00 (Printing Costs)
+Rs. 40.00 (Author's Revenue)
+Rs. 10.00 (CinnamonTeal Commission)
------
Rs. 230.00
Rs. 230.00, however, cannot be the marked selling price of the book. This is because retailers who may choose to buy your book for display in their stores make money by buying books at a discount off the retail price that has been marked on your book. Typically these discounts run upto 45%, freight paid. The cost arrived above has to, therefore, be 55% of the marked price of the book.
i.e. computed price = 55% of marked price
i.e marked price = 230/0.55 = Rs. 420/-
On the sale of each book having a marked price of Rs. 420/-, the retailer will give you Rs. 230/-. Of this, you keep Rs. 40/-, Rs. 180/- go towards the production costs and Rs. 10/- is what CinnamonTeal makes on the sale.
Note: Due to the illegality of dual pricing, books not sold through retailers(i.e. books sold online) will also be priced at Rs. 420.00. After deducting the costs of printing, the profits are shared between the author and CinnamonTeal with the author getting 80% of the profits.
Also note that the higher the Author's Revenue, the higher the cost of the book. Authors must therefore decide if they wish to demand a high revenue (and gamble on the number of copies of the book sold) or demand a lower revenue (and make money by selling volumes).