Who makes this, and how it works.
Bookstrapper is a free resource made by Scribe Media, a book writing and publishing company in Austin, Texas that has published more than 3,000 books. It answers one question for authors paying their own way: what will the book really cost to make, and how do you pay for it?
Why Scribe makes a cost site
Scribe sells editing, publishing and ghostwriting, so it has an interest in what you decide. We think the best answer to that is to show our work. Every freelance and platform price on this site comes from an outside source you can open. Scribe's own prices appear only in clearly labeled comparison boxes, always with the note that Scribe makes the site, and the calculator never adds them to your total. Where the freelance or do-it-yourself route is cheaper, the site says so.
How the calculator works
- Editing is words times a per-word rate from the Editorial Freelancers Association 2026 Rate Chart, using the row for your book type (nonfiction, business/marketing or memoir). Budget and high end are the two ends of the EFA's median range; typical is the midpoint.
- Cover: budget $350 (EFA per-project median), typical Reedsy's median ($930, or $740 for memoir), high end $1,200 (the top of the middle half of Reedsy cover projects).
- Layout: pages times the EFA's per-page layout rates ($5.00 to $7.50 print, $1.88 to $4.38 ebook). Pages are estimated at 360 words a page from Gatekeeper Press's 6 x 9 figures, unless you enter your own.
- ISBNs and copyright: Bowker's and the US Copyright Office's published fees. The Library of Congress number is free; the calculator adds the print cost of the one copy you owe the Library.
- Printing and author copies: Amazon KDP's published paperback formula for your page count, trim and ink. Shipping is not included, because KDP publishes no formula for it.
- Audiobook: words divided by 9,300 words per finished hour (ACX), times $200 to $400 an hour (Reedsy). Royalty share is shown as $0 upfront.
- Break-even: your plan total divided by the royalty per copy under KDP's published rules for paperbacks (60% at $9.99 and up, 50% below, minus printing) and ebooks (70% after $0.15 per MB delivery for $2.99 to $12.99, 35% otherwise), and by the margin on copies you sell yourself.
- Advice tags ("Do not skip", "Can do yourself", "Optional", "Free option") are our editorial judgment, explained on each line. They are not data.
All rates live in one commented block at the top of the calculator's script, each with its source address, so a correction changes every result at once. The calculator runs entirely in your browser.
Editorial policy
- Sources. Every number links to the page it came from, and we only use pages we opened ourselves. If we could not source a figure, we leave it out or say it varies. We could not open SAG-AFTRA's audiobook rate sheet, for example, so we do not quote union rates.
- Dates. Every rate on the site was checked on October 20, 2026. Prices change; when we recheck, each page shows the new date.
- Ranges, not quotes. Survey medians and marketplace averages describe the market. A particular editor or designer can charge more or less.
- Author results. Where we mention a Scribe author's result, it is quoted from that author's published success story on scribemedia.com and linked. One author's result is one example, never a typical outcome.
- No speed claims, no hype. We describe costs and trade-offs in plain words.
- Corrections. Spot an outdated price? Email privacy@scribemedia.com with the page and the source, and we will fix it.
What this site does not cover
Bookstrapper sticks to costs and paying for them. It does not compare publishing paths, plan launches or help develop a book idea.
Your privacy
No cookies and no advertising trackers run on this site. What you enter in the calculator stays in your browser. Read the privacy page for the details.
If you want help from a person, Scribe offers a free consultation.