What does it cost to produce a self-published book properly? Set your word count and manuscript type and this page prices each production task from the Editorial Freelancers Association's published 2026 Rate Chart medians, then shows the published cover design benchmarks. Every range links to the rate card it was read from. Costs nobody publishes are left out rather than guessed.
| Task | Per word | Your manuscript | Hourly (secondary) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developmental Editing | $0.03 to $0.035 | $2,400 to $2,800 | $52.5 to $70/hr |
| Line Editing | $0.027 to $0.035 | $2,160 to $2,800 | $50 to $60/hr |
| Copyediting | $0.02 to $0.027 | $1,600 to $2,160 | $40 to $50/hr |
| Proofreading | $0.012 to $0.02 | $960 to $1,600 | $35 to $45/hr |
| Formatting | $0.011 to $0.014 | $880 to $1,120 | $52.5 to $67.5/hr |
| All 5 tasks (few books buy every one) | $8,000 to $10,480 |
Source: Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) Rates - 2026 Rate Chart (the-efa.org/rates), median rate ranges reported by 1,100+ EFA members, fetched 2026-07-13. A typical self-published book buys one or two editing passes plus proofreading, not all five tasks.
$625 to $1,250
Typical project range; average $880. Basis: Analysis of over 9,600 cover design collaborations on the Reedsy marketplace in 2025.
Source: Reedsy cover design cost report, published 2025-12-23, fetched 2026-07-14.
99designs localizes its published prices by visitor region; the page fetched on 2026-07-14 showed euro for Ireland. Prices exclude sales tax. Shown in EUR as published rather than converted at a made-up exchange rate. Source: 99designs book cover design page, fetched 2026-07-14.
What is not listed here, and why: ISBN prices and proof-copy costs are omitted because no published rate card could be verified on the fetch date, and IngramSpark sells no cover design service to price. This page never fills a gap with a guess; the omissions are logged in the data's verification file.
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The editing figures are median rate ranges reported by more than 1,100 members of the Editorial Freelancers Association for work done in 2025, published as theEFA 2026 Rate Chart. Individual quotes vary with the state of your manuscript: a clean draft sits at the low end, a heavy rewrite can exceed the top of the developmental range. Most books buy one or two editing passes plus proofreading, not every task in the table.
For covers, the $625 to $1250range comes fromReedsy's published cover design rate report(analysis of over 9,600 cover design collaborations on the reedsy marketplace in 2025.) and the fixed-price packages from the99designs book cover page, which publishes in local currency (euro at our fetch). IngramSpark does not sell cover design, so it contributes no figure. ISBN and proof-copy costs are omitted because no published rate card verified them on the fetch date; the omissions and reasons are logged alongside the data.
Once you know your production budget, theroyalty calculator's scenarios modewill tell you how many sales it takes to earn it back at your price, and thepublish path decidershows which platform terms fit your book.
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