You Get Paid!
Blog Post 75
March 24, 2025 - Ramadhan 24, 1446
People keep asking us how much Inked Resistance Islamic Publishing charges to publish a book. At first, we couldn’t understand the question since we don’t require people to pay us to publish their manuscript.
We started working on a blog post about it a long while ago, but never got it finished and we've been overwhelmed and busy with the horrifying and constant genocide in Gaza and Palestine and the shahadah of so many of our leaders and innocent people as well as our publishing work. Hopefully, this blog post will clarify things, inshallah. (Please forgive us if it’s slightly out of date – it’s very difficult the way they keep changing their “contracts.”) We wish you and your families a blessed Eid al-Fitr, inshallah.
Essentially what’s happening is people think we’re a self-publishing company, such as Lulu; Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) (which combined CreateSpace in it) – owned by Amazon; IngramSpark; Draft2Digital; Barnes and Noble Press (B&N Press), etc. (This blog post is not listing or explaining all the self-publishing companies out there.) Most of those kinds of companies don’t charge anything for you to create a book. But the book isn’t available unless it’s printed and, of course, that’s what you’ll pay for. Most of these self-publishing companies operate on a print on demand (POD) format. It is printed only when a customer buys your book. The book can be sold from these companies’ websites and through other retailers, like Amazon. These companies grab a monetary percentage of your sold books. If an author chooses to sell their book with other retailers, the money you’ll make is less because those retailers take a higher cut. IngramSpark has lots of pitfalls and rules to follow and they charge for corrections/revisions to your book. Bookvault has an upfront setup cost; BookBaby has a high upfront setup cost and costs too much to print; Blurb books cost too much to print and too much to purchase (plus it was originally funded by Canaan Partners). Look at this for more info, particularly the estimated royalties - https://blog.reedsy.com/print-on-demand-books/
Sara A. Noë writes in her June 26, 2019 article, “Self-Publishing Review: Barnes & Noble Press vs. IngramSpark,” that since she’s an indie author and used B&N Press as well as IngramSpark, she’s “the publisher operating under my own LLC as the publishing company. B&N Press and IngramSpark are the printers/distributors.” (LLC means limited liability company which is not recognized everywhere and everyone can’t have that.) That’s not as clear as you may think though.
If you want to self-publish, beware of who your money’s tied up with. For example, Lulu’s founder and owner Bob Young was CEO and later the chairman of the board of Precision Hawk which makes drones, and not just drones for “fun,” and DataMapper. The US government was only one customer of them. Jeff Bezos founded, owns, along with Vanguard Group, BlackRock and State Street, and is the CEO of Amazon which includes KDP. Personally, I don’t want anything to do with Bezos. That’s why we don’t sell on Amazon. He’s rich enough, don’t cha think? But that’s not the only reason. Check out the criticisms of Amazon’s publishing business, including data sharing and retention, hate speech and misinformation and plagiarism and piracy @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle_Direct_Publishing before you use it. Barnes and Noble and its self-publishing press is owned by Elliott Management Corporation, an investment management hedge (“vulture”) fund firm founded by “vulture capitalist” Paul Singer who is the firm’s CEO, while Waterstones Booksellers of London’s James Daunt is the CEO of both bookstores. Check out Singer’s bio before you publish with them.
We haven’t even talked about e-books, which KDP dominates worldwide (see their pitfalls below). Also, you’ll have a hard time selling your e-book over US$2.99.
Authors always want to know how much they’ll make as royalties from the sell of their book. Just be sure, you won’t make much. The self-publishing companies take so much of the money from the sale of your book, that you’ll be lucky to get anything. This includes the cost to print the book, various fees and the reduced royalties because they sell your book to stores at wholesale prices way below the selling price.*
There are many pitfalls in signing up with self-publishing companies. Read their fine print, policies and terms and conditions. Big royalty amounts will never come to the author! In fact, they’re pretty pitiful. See for example:
Lulu - https://www.magloft.com/blog/lulu-self-publishing/ and https://blog.reedsy.com/lulu-publishing/ ;
Kindle Direct Publishing (e-book) - https://authorlink.com/news-and-views/rants/avoiding-the-pitfalls-of-publishing-with-amazon-kindle-self-publishing-platform/ ;
Barnes and Noble - https://onthecobblestoneroad.com/bn-press-vs-ingramspark/
Pitfalls of Self-Publishing
First, they generally own your book and may even own the copyright to it.
Second, you have to pay to get a copy of your own book and have it shipped to you.
Third, you have to do all the work yourself, which they may say isn’t good enough or won’t fit or whatever, or pay for a typesetter, formatter, proofreader, copy editor, layout person, graphic designer (for the book cover), etc., either from them (if they have that) or find one on your own.
Fourth, there are other hidden costs, such as currency exchange fees, paypal and/or bank fees, taxes, distribution and shipping/delivery costs. KDP, for example, won’t pay the higher percentage if your book sells outside specified territories and instead pay you half of that. Plus, they can sell your book for whatever they decide below your list price whenever they want. This will, of course, reduce your earnings. Amazon is a ruthless corporate monopoly!
Fifth, they don’t market nor advertise your book, but you may be able to pay for that.
Sixth, they don’t publish really, they just print your book (and maybe distribute it) and own all its rights.
Self-publishing companies can:
suspend your account or kick you off it completely
sell your book files without your consent
open your book up to plagiarism and theft
tie you up with legalities over getting paid
not pay you
Plus, you have to deal with their “friendly” and “helpful” customer service reps. You can see all the complaints online.
They’re betting on your vanity.
Don’t be vain. It’s a dangerous thing. We’re warned about having excessive pride, being conceited, being arrogant, showing off and showcasing. Don’t let your ego get the better of you. Self-publishing companies make money off your vanity. Your book will get lost among the other millions of titles they’re selling. They don’t care how successful your book will be. Essentially, they’re just out to make money, even a little bit, off you! They have no scruples. They don’t care what your book’s about unless they catch that it’s about something they don’t agree with. There’s no editorial input. You won’t have a personal experience with them – it’ll be a corporate one. Self-publishing doesn’t convey the same recognition nor prestige as being published by a real publisher.
Traditional Publishers
What about getting your book published with a traditional publishing company?
First off, they make all the decisions about what your cover will look like, where your book’s distributed, endorsements, etc.
Second, the most you’ll make is around 8% or less of the selling price of your book from retail stores, brick-and-mortar and online ones. (See “How Much Do Authors Make? The Truth About Money in Publishing”) And it’s doubtful they’ll sell your book for that much in the first place.
Third, you get less after they sell your book to warehouse clubs at a discount of at least 50%.
Fourth, you’ll have to pay a literary agent 15% to even get your book looked at by traditional publishers, which means they get 15% of your sales. (“How Much Do Authors Make? The Truth About Money in Publishing”)
Fifth, they don’t really market your book.
But the worst thing is the publishing company owns your book and maybe even the copyright. As well, there will be clauses in the contract that tell you what you can and cannot do now and in the future and not just with that book, like even posting a picture of your book on social media. But really, you won’t likely get published by a traditional publishing company unless you tow the party line. This goes particularly for Islamic fiction!
Traditional publishers are a monopoly of corporations who publish best-selling authors, famous people, trashy people, un-Islamic books, anti-Islam books, etc. They are definitely NOT interested in publishing regular Muslims who want to write Islamic fiction that is moral, politically on-time and upliftingly powerful. Don’t waste your time!
Inked Resistance Islamic Publishing
isn’t like all that at all.
Inked Resistance Islamic Publishing does all the work for you, including typesetting, proofreading, editing, cover design, marketing and selling. Your book will be sold on our website and on other trusted on-line bookstores and by booksellers. You’ll get some copies of your book and a 40% discount for more. If you’d like and depending on circumstances, we may be able to work together to market your book through book launches and other events. Your book is your book and you hold the copyright to it.
You don’t pay! You get paid!
Let’s look at the example of a 200 page paperback book that sells for $20.00 for an estimate of Inked Resistance Islamic Publishing’s costs and royalties in US dollars. Even though costs have gone up substantially since we began our company, and especially since the virus sucked the life out of small businesses, a fairly good estimate is that each book will cost us over a quarter of that sale price to print. Of course, there are many other costs to the company, such as bank fees, domain costs, shopping cart fees, copyright fee, book cover costs, etc. Inked Resistance Islamic Publishing pays the author around $4.00, in this example, or 20%; but less if it’s sold other places at wholesale prices or when the book is on sale inshallah.**
Writers – and we published several artists in our last book, Voices of Solidarity with the People of Gaza***, also – who contribute to an anthology are paid a set amount for each word or piece of art. That amount will depend on the number of contributors and the type of anthology we’re publishing. For example, in our last book, we are donating 50% of our profits to the people of Gaza. In fact, we’ve already donated what we project our profit to be. Al-Hamdulillah. So we paid less to the writers and artists. Several of them donated their work to the book.
Inked Resistance Islamic Publishing’s goal is to publish the voices of our young and new adults. We care about your thoughts and ideas. We’re not out to make money off of you. You can feel successful, see your name in lights with a reputable and personal Islamic publisher and make some money. Your contribution to the Islamic movement is valuable and needed. It’ll be everlasting, inshallah.
Voice Yourself!
Notes
*Go to the individual publishing websites to calculate your specific costs.
**Please note that these are estimates. Actual royalties will depend on number of pages and cost of printing, creating the book cover and other fees incurred by Inked Resistance Islamic Publishing. We’ve taken great pains to figure out a just royalty amount for our authors which we’ve quoted here as an example. Inked Resistance Islamic Publishing values our authors’ work and respects their artistry and our desire is to offer a fair payment for the opportunity to publish them, inshallah.
***See it here - https://www.inkedresistanceislamicpublishing.com/shop-mystore#!/Voices-in-Solidarity-with-the-People-of-Gaza/p/645379173
Resources
Booth, Doris. (Nov 22, 2019) “Avoiding the Pitfalls of Publishing With Amazon Kindle Self-Publishing Platform.” Authorlink.com. Accessed from https://authorlink.com/news-and-views/rants/avoiding-the-pitfalls-of-publishing-with-amazon-kindle-self-publishing-platform/
“Kindle Direct Publishing.” Wikipedia. Accessed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle_Direct_Publishing
Literary Agent News. (Oct. 27, 2024). “How Much Does a Literary Agent Cost? – Get a Literary Agent.” getaliteraryagent.com. Accessed from https://getaliteraryagent.com/how-much-does-a-literary-agent-cost/
Mokoginta, Christine. (May 5, 2021). “Lulu Self-Publishing: Why You Need to Avoid It!” Magloft.com. Accessed from https://www.magloft.com/blog/lulu-self-publishing/
Reedsy Editorial Team (Dario Villirilli, Ed.). (March 22, 2024). “Print on Demand Books: The 6 Best Services in 2025, Compared!” Reedsy.com. Accessed from https://blog.reedsy.com/print-on-demand-books/
Noë, Sara A. (June 26, 2019). “Self-Publishing Review: Barnes & Noble Press vs. IngramSpark.” On the Cobblestone Road. Accessed from https://onthecobblestoneroad.com/bn-press-vs-ingramspark/
Reedsy Editorial Team (Cavnnagh, Martin, Ed.). (April 30, 2020). “Lulu Publishing Review: READ THIS Before You Use Them!” Reedsy.com. Accessed from https://blog.reedsy.com/lulu-publishing/
Reedsy Editorial Team. (Cordova, Savannah, Ed.). (Sept. 5, 2022). “How Much Do Authors Make? The Truth About Money in Publishing.” Reedsy.com. Accessed from https://blog.reedsy.com/how-much-do-authors-make/