How much would you be willing to pay for an eBook creation service

[Dan]

Hi everyone,

I have cleared this post with Simon firstly.

I am looking at setting up an eBook Creation Service, to assist indie authors in getting their eBooks professionally constructed and ready for publishing.

The finished eBook would have an embedded front cover, interactive TOC, chapter markers that can be skipped to using the 5 way selector on the kindle, dedication page etc.

What I would like to know is how much (specifically the indie authors) you would be willing to pay for this type of service.

Also as a thank you for your input I'll create a free eBook for the first one of you who asks! Then you can give me feedback on the eBook and let everyone else here, there and everywhere know if you are happy with your eBook.


Thanks for your time,

Dan

[Vic]

Hello Dan

You do realise that such services already exist.

I used BookBaby. They charge $99 dollars or another $99 if you want them to design a cover for you.

I hope that is useful

[Dan]

Hi Vic,

Thanks for the comment, yes I am aware there are already services available. I thought $100 dollars or £100 is quite excessive and wondered if people thought this was a reasonably amount to pay?

[Vic]

Hello Dan

I am amazed at what you get from BookBaby for that price. You send them a Word document and an e-book appears, without any of the hassle I hear on this forum when people do it themselves, without any of the blank pages which frequently appear in "do it yourself" ebooks, distributed to numerous platforms and suppliers, more of those added as Bookbaby makes new agreements, and one income stream with Bookbaby making no deductions - the upfront payment is the only one.

If all that can be done for a lower fee, I for one will be delighted.

The only snags I have experienced with BookBaby is that the sales data is months behind as they have to wait for the data to reach them from Amazon, iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, et cetera, and that they have only three methods of payment - (US) dollar cheques, PayPal and ACH tranfer (which can only happen within the United States).

The royalties from my book go direct to Pancreatic Cancer UK, which means the only option available is the US dollar cheques, which clearly incur a cost in conversion to pounds.

A UK-based service similar to BookBaby would solve the currency problem.