Lets say you finally find someone that is willing to publish your book, how much would it approximately cost to publish a lets say 300 pg book, soft cover?

Most legitimate publishers won't make you pay to publish your book. This is a list of questionable practices you could run into while trying to get a book published.

1. Fee-charging--whether for the actual printing/production of the book, or for some other item related to the publishing process, such as editing or publicity. Some publishers require authors to buy bulk quantities of their own books. Fees range from a few hundred dollars to more than $25,000. A nominal "advance" in the face of other fee-charging practices does nothing to legitimize them.

2. Author-unfriendly contracts--including rights grabs, taking copyright, restrictive option clauses, sub-standard royalty provisions (including reverse-accounted royalties), inadequate reversion clauses, draconian "defamation clauses," and a host of other inappropriate and abusive contract terms.

3. Deliberately misleading advertising--including directly soliciting authors, misrepresenting services to authors in an effort to masquerade as commercial publishers, hiding the fact that they are vanity operations, and making false claims about distribution and bookstore presence.

4. Conflicts of interest--some of these publishers are the vanity "arm" of (or otherwise under common control with) a fee-charging literary agency, which directs clients to the publisher under the guise of having made a "sale"--often without revealing the financial and personnel links between the two businesses.

5. Lack of editorial gatekeeping--as befits vanity operations, many of these publishers have few, if any, standards for the books they acquire. Some don't even bother to read the books they accept for publication.

6. Poor or inadequate editing. Some of these publishers don’t even pretend to provide editing. Others do little more than run the text through a spell and grammar checking program, or employ unqualified, inexperienced staff.

7. Repeated breach of contractual obligations--such as nonpayment of royalties, refusal to provide royalty statements, incorrect accounting, publication delays, ARCs not sent for review as promised, failure to ship books or fulfill orders, failure to make author changes in proofs, and failure to respond properly to author queries and communications. Some of these publishers have been the focus of successful litigation and other legal actions by authors.


The following is a list of publishers that have had numerous complaints lodged against them based on the criteria listed.

* American Book Publishing (Salt Lake City, UT)
* Archebooks Publishing (Las Vegas, NV)
* Durban House Publishing (Dallas, TX)
* Harbor House (Augusta, GA)
* Helm Publishing (Rockford, IL)
* Hilliard and Harris (Boonsboro, MD)
* New World Media, Inc., a.k.a. American Book Press (formerly Washington House and Mandrill, a.k.a. Trident Media) (Alexandria, VA)
* Oak Tree Press (Taylorville, IL)
* PublishAmerica (Frederick, MD)
* Royal Fireworks Press/Silk Label Books (Unionville, NY)
* SterlingHouse Publisher (Pittsburgh, PA--imprints include, among others, Pemberton Mysteries, 8th Crow Books, Cambrian House Books, Blue Imp Books, Caroline House Books, Dove House Books, and PAJA Books)
* Tate Publishing (Mustang, OK)
* Whitmore Publishing Company (Pittsburgh, PA)

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/02/happy-valentines-day-from-writer-beware.html

Ah, if it was only that easy!

A lot of different things can greatly affect the cost of printing a book.

Lulu's numbers are about 2x as much as lithographic printing (assuming you're printing over 1000 books), so be careful using those numbers!

The best way to find out is to request a quote from several book printers, and average them together.

One thing you'll need to know is the run length (number of books). It's the biggest factor in determining your cost.

Paper, cover treatments (embossing, foil, etc), and how soon you need it can also affect the cost by varying degrees.

Bethany Press Custom Solutions
http://bethanypress.com/

Self Publishing Solutions for Christian Authors
Outsourced Book Production for Small Publishers

Have a look at http://www.lulu.com : they will allow you to calculate exactly what it will cost. Or just Google "self-publishing".

well depends, if you find a publishing company that is free, u don;t have to pay, u get money when ur book sells