Profit & Loss Calculator for Independently Publishing a Hardcover Children's Book

THE SLEEPY STARS BOOK PUBLISHING JOURNEY - A children’s book for better bedtimes

In the near future, Dr. Gregory Madden and Dr. Florence DiGennaro-Reed will publish the second edition of the APA Handbook for Behavior Analysis.

I had the rare opportunity to write a chapter with my wife, Dr. Nicole Rodriguez, on Pediatric Sleep: A Behavioral Account.

While writing, Dr. Derek Reed suggested we co-author and independently publish a children’s book to support parents. A bedtime book that could help parents peacefully complete the bedtime routine and initiate sleep in the desired location without extensive negotiation seemed to fit the mission.

So, we have been deep in designing and crafting a children’s book that has several evidence-based strategies built into the book itself. We have not found another children’s book that takes this approach, which requires specialty printed features.

We have partnered with Melinda Martin as our publishing consultant and editor (and all-around solution finder). She has been a perfect it. Three weeks ago we officially partnered with the illustrator, Gary Wilkinson, to bring Sleepy Star: Bedtime by the Book to life.

One of the first steps for Derek and myself was to try to make some sense of the economics of our decision to independently publish a self-help tool for parents as a children’s book.

In response, we built a calculator in an attempt to predict cost, revenue, and profit. We built ways to toggle the type of sales channel (e.g., Direct, Amazon, Distributor, etc.) and fulfillment provider (e.g., Amazon MCF, Acutrack, Fulfillrite, etc.). In addition, we attempted to take into account all the expenses associated with the initial costs of creating the book and costs as more books are printed and sold.

We know there are likely errors in the calculator, and it was built around the idea of an 8 by 8 hardcover children’s book.

I have been inspired by people who talk about the journey of publishing while trying to help people, such as Jonathan Goodman, Alex Wiechowski, Ben Putano, and Paul Millerd. As such, we created a generic version of the calculator in case it could help anyone else in a similar position.

Here is a link to the Book Calculator on the web.

If you find value in it or want to make modifications, here is a link to download the HTML file here.

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I am Dr. Kevin Luczynski, a behavioral scientist helping families with sleep and challenging behavior. Co-authoring Sleepy Star: Bedtime by the Book with Dr. Derek Reed. Equal parts bedtime story and bedtime tool for parents — one book that handles the routine, the goodnight, and staying in bed. Follow our journey of directly publishing this book — plus notes on sleep science and behavioral parenting — by subscribing to Atomic Parenting on Substack.

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