You’ll notice on this website almost every maze is made in color. I think the mazes look more interesting and color really is advantageous to convey what the object of the maze is. But maze books you buy at a book store (or online) are almost always in black and white. Today I am going to answer why this is by going through some examples of creating a maze book using Amazon KDP. After seeing how the pricing comes out for black and white versus color books the answer will be obvious. Amazon KDP raised their prices on June 20, 2023 and all numbers reflect that new pricing. At the end I have included data for the previous Amazon KDP pricing for comparison.
Before we get started, which Puzzle Maze do you prefer ? The left example is and excerpt from a book that I have for sale on Amazon. The right example is from a free book that I have posted in the book section of the website. For me this is not even a close comparison. Did you notice that to give more interest to the greyscale version on the left I used 3 different shapes while in the right example I only used circles yet it still looks more interesting.
Black and White Puzzle Maze - excerpt from The Kids Maze Lover's Variety Book: Kids 8 -10 Edition
Color Puzzle Maze - excerpt from The Puzzle Maze Book
Why Maze Books Are Rarely in Color
All options below are for a large size book (8.5 x11) which most maze books are. You can make a smaller sized maze book, but let’s all admit small mazes are hard on the eyes and in this case bigger is better.
Let’s look at an example using Amazon KDP: Black and White option
What would it cost to print a 50 page maze book in black and white on Amazon using KDP ? The printing cost is $2.85 for any book under 110 pages. If the book is 110 pages plus you need to do some math using this formula:
Fixed cost + ( page count * per page cost ) = printing cost
Seems great, right ! Not so fast. You also need to pay a royalty to Amazon which for Amazon KDP is 40%. Ouch. To determine the MINIMUM price you can charge you need to divide your printing cost by 60%. The 60% is the portion of the royalty YOU make and then you take the cost of printing out to determine what money you actually clear.
printing cost / 60% = minimum list price
$2.85 / 60% = $4.75
So if you sold the hypothetical 50 page black and white book for $4.75 you would make no money, only covering the cost to print the book and pay Amazon a royalty (clearly something you should not want to do….unless this is your version of a ‘loss leader’ like a grocery store might use). Let’s look at a few possible retail prices and see what happens to the profits of printing this book using Amazon KDP:
Retail Price = $4.95
Amazon gets $4.82, You make $0.13 (2.6% of sales are yours)
Retail Price = $5.95
Amazon gets $5.22, you make $0.73 (12.3% of sales are yours)
Retail Price = $6.95
Amazon gets $5.62, You make $1.33 (19.1% of sales are yours)
Now, most books sell very few copies. But let’s imagine having a best seller, selling 20K copies of a book at a retail price of $4.95, generating $99K and of that you get $2.6K of that money. Amazon gets $96.3K. That is not profit. You are paying them for the KDP service, the cost of on demand printing, and the access to their customers. I do not know how much of that is profit, but I do know that is the gross $ heading their way.
Those numbers are sobering (for me, and I assume for you also), but help you understand how books get priced. Now let’s look at the same hypothetical book if printed in as full color !!!
FULL COLOR OPTION
First the cost to print the book jumps from $2.85 to a formula we need solve. The price per page jumps to 8 cents per page plus a fixed cost, so here is the formula we must solve (our math teachers would be proud we are using what we learned so many years ago):
Fixed cost + ( page count * per page cost ) = printing cost
$1.00 + (50*.08) = $5.00
So to print a book in color vs. the same book in black and white the price of printing has gone up 75% from $2.85 to $5.00. But, we still have to pay a royalty to Amazon KDP so we need to figure out our minimum retail price again:
printing cost / 60% = minimum list price
New: $5.00 / 60% = $8.33
As expected the price has basically doubled here also (math !!), so let’s look as possible prices and their resulting profits:
Retail Price = $8.95, Amazon gets $8.58 You make $0.37 (4.1% of sales are yours)
Retail Price = $9.95, Amazon gets $8.98 You make $0.97 (9.7% of sales are yours)
For the apples (white) to apples (green) comparison let’s say you want to make $1 for every book you sell. That means the following odd, but mathematically calculated retail prices:
Black and white retail price $6.40 vs Color retail price of $10.00
So, will printing your book in color give the buyer 56% more value than if you made the book in black and white ? Either way you make $1. I think the price of a maze book at $10.00 for 50 mazes is expensive (and a bit of research on Amazon confirms this) so it will need to be very special to get any buyers. Will the time spent making 50 full color mazes that are great be worth the sales generated at $1 per book in your pocket ? I think most people would say probably not. There is a contrarian case to be made that a full color maze book that is well done would be a black swan and WOULD be worth the time and effort. I hope so.
Also, while the following statement may not be fair, if you sell $50K of your maze book either way (An economist would say this is almost surely not possible based on the different pricing, but…) you would have sold 7,813 black and white maze books (at $6.40) and 5,000 full color maze books (at $10). Because this calculation works off of a $1 profit per book sold, you would make 56% more money by printing in black and white. Again, there are assumptions embedded in this calculation.
QUICK MATH - What about a maze book with 100 Pages ?
Let’s check to make sure that this example holds true when the page count changes. Rather than go thru each step I will highlight the math to calculate the cost of printing a 100 page book in black and white (B/W) and color. It relies on our previous experience to calculate the pricing.
B/W: $2.85 / 60% = $4.75 minimum price
That’s correct, the price to print 100 pages in black and white is the same for Amazon KDP, while each additional page in color adds 8 cents to the printing cost:
Color: $10.00 / 60% = $15.00 minimum price
And our resulting retail price needed to make $1.00 in profit as an author:
B/W : $6.40
Color: $16.67
So, while our general finding holds true, the result has gotten much worse. In fact, the more pages you print, the worse the situation gets as shown in the chart below. As an author/creator the thought of a consumer buying a book for almost $17 and you getting $1 is a bit unbelievable. If I asked you how much of a $17 books price went to the author I bet you would say a much higher # than $1. At least it isn’t a 200 page $30 book !!
And here are the old prices under Amazon KDP. The premium for color has gone down a bit while prices overall have gone up. So if you have seen the prices of books go up recently - this is why.
What about everything else ?
I think it would be a miss if I didn’t mention the other aspects of publishing a book. While the above assumptions were all calculated to help the author make $1 per book, this assumed NO MARKETING SPEND. I also assumed you have birthed your book without paying for EDITING, COVER DESIGN, or FORMATTING. You are going to want a great cover (I have confidence in you!) and formatting will take more time than you think (numbering pages, centering, resizing). This is where a savvy business person jumps in and says they offer it for one low price of $ (Sorry - I don’t offer it).
So, the next time to are in a dollar or discount store and you stop by the book section and you see the maze books, activity books, and coloring books I hope you will remember why these are all in black and white except for the bright and colorful cover to make you pick it up (although a color coloring book would defeat the purpose actually - nothing to color !). Because each of those book types use the same pricing structure I described above. And if you DO find a maze book in color, and yes they do exist, pick it up and admire it because it is a special book.
Use the KDP Calculator Tool
Amazon KDP offers a calculator tool to help you understand what your proposed book will cost and how to price it. This is the tool I used to compare black and white to color printing. Playing with the spreadsheet can give you insight on what the optimal page length and retail price should be for your printed book. Ideally you want to have a porridge that is just the right temperature - What gives you enough profit to be worth it, and what price gives the customer a great value to want to purchase the book. I should also mention that Non-Amazon websites have similar spreads in the printing of books between black and white and color, often with color being more than 2X the price depending on the page length. If you want to see how prices changes in June 2023, this sheet will show you.
Good Luck !
My Color Maze Books
For now when you come to the website I will keep making Print-Your-Own books in full color like the Puzzle Maze Book below. And, yes, they are free (no calculation needed) ! The construction of these mazes and similar conditional path mazes work best in color, in fact some demand to be in color or they are not solvable. But as far as selling as a printed book, well, black and white will always win even if it would look better in color !
Much better in color !