As a response to a question on my previous blog entry, I decided to look into CafePress. For mugs, T-shirts, and all of the assorted oddball things they hold over there, it may just be the cat's pajamas. For book publishing, not so much.
Let's assume we're trying to publish the same 6"x9", 250 pages, black and white text and color cover book as my previous post.
Problem 1: There is no option for that same size. 5×8 is as close as they come, which is a bit smaller than the trade standard 5.5" x8.5". But we'll go with it anyway.
Problem 2: There is a flat rate charged as a binding fee per book purchased – $7 for perfect binding in this case. There is also a $0.03 per page charge. Ooops. This means for our 250-page sample book we're up to $14.50 in printing and publishing charges. Then we need to add a profit (presumably) for the author.
If I try to market my book for $16 (gives the author a significant $1.50 per sale) plus a shipping charge, and the readers compare that with a similar sized book that costs maybe $6.99 at checkout at the grocery store, I'm not going to expect many sales. Actually, CafePress makes out like a bandit in this scenario, few books will be sold due to the unattractive price (my opinion based on what I'm finding in the market), and the author gets very little.
Compared to the costs in my previous post with other publishers, and compared to expected earnings, I think there's no comparison. If you're on CafePress, stick with T-shirts and mugs or something.
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Jason
June 2, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I find that cafepress is good for printing out one book to give to beta readers.