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Why Publish A Large Print Edition of Your Book? Plus Tips On How To Do It

May 25, 2018 by Joanna Penn 23 Comments

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Indie authors often focus primarily on ebooks because that's where we can compete in terms of price and readership. But there are still a LOT of readers who prefer print, and an underserved market with Large Print editions.

Since print-on-demand means a low cost to create and then profit each time a book is printed, why wouldn't you consider doing a Large Print edition for your book? In this video with notes below, I explain why Large Print is a good idea and some of the things you need to consider. Watch the video below or here on YouTube.

Notes from the video:

  • You can get large print on ebooks by turning up the font size, but some readers still prefer print books and need larger print in order to enjoy them. Plus, there are library markets, which still cater for their older demographic.
  • Love, Second Time Around by Penny Appleton. Revenue split by format for 1st year of sales

    Love, Second Time Around by Penny Appleton (the sweet romance I co-write with my Mum), has sold surprisingly well in the first year in Large Print. 52% ebook, 12% Print, 36% Large Print. All 3 sweet romances are now in Large Print, and I'm moving into doing my mystery series as well.

  • Use a larger trim size. I use 6.14 x 9.21 / 234mm x 156 mm.
  • Use a larger font. I use 16 point.
  • You will need a different ISBN as it is a new edition.
  • Find a list of formatting options here.
  • Consider something on the cover to indicate Large Print. I use a “sticker” which is part of the cover design. Click here for book cover designers.
  • When printing with Createspace, you can use the Large Print checkbox, and on Ingram Spark, just use Large Print in the text and then you can email them to add the metadata if doesn't come through correctly.
  • If you're just starting with self-publishing, click here for more on how to self-publish with print-on-demand.

Once you claim the book on Amazon Author Central, it will be added as a new edition as below and linked to the reviews for your other editions.

Will you consider Large Print or other formats for your books? Let me know in the comments and join the conversation.

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Filed Under: Publishing Options Tagged With: large print, Print on Demand

Comments

  1. JJ Toner says

    May 26, 2018 at 2:27 am

    Hi Joanna, What about hardbacks? Hardback large print? JJ

    Reply
    • Joanna Penn says

      May 26, 2018 at 3:09 am

      I haven’t done hardbacks at all. They are a very small part of the market and really for true fans, from what I can tell. Large Print is more expensive anyway, so this would be even more expensive. Not something I’m considering right now. But go for it 🙂

      Reply
  2. Patricia M Robertson says

    May 26, 2018 at 2:48 pm

    I haven’t done large print, but now I’m thinking about it. Thanks for the tip.

    Reply
  3. RG Ainslee says

    May 26, 2018 at 9:19 pm

    Many books have too small print for my eyes. That’s why I favor the Kindle . I comprised for my paperback edition and used Georgia 12 point with 1,15 spacing between lines. Much easier to read.

    Reply
  4. Rory Marron says

    May 31, 2018 at 11:27 am

    Hi Joanna,

    Recently you gave some statistics about the market for Large Print. I was interested, so I edited an existing pdf to change ISBN and date of publication, then re-scaled the pdf from 5.025 x 7.75 inches to 6 x 9. It was a cinch, free, and took about two minutes in all. So the production side of things is easy enough. My question is in regard to pricing. I crunched your numbers and you seem to be going for a hefty ($4.42) profit on the LP edition versus a more modest one ($1.17) for the 5 x 8″ edition. Your print costs on CreateSpace are identical I think, so why such a big price difference ($15.99 vs $10.58)? I can’t see you deliberately wanting to penalise elderly/vision-impaired readers, so I’m assuming you’ve identified something else in the LP market, library sales perhaps as being the biggest customers for LP tittles? I’d appreciate a bit more info as to the profit difference.

    Love your podcasts!

    Reply
    • Joanna Penn says

      May 31, 2018 at 2:13 pm

      I usually just add $2-$3 so there is no difference in my profit. But the costs are VERY different. Large Print is much thicker. 50 pages plus more and a bigger size.

      Reply
  5. Rory Marron says

    May 31, 2018 at 2:23 pm

    Hi Joanna,
    As a follow up, I’ve just noticed (on Wikipedia) that for ‘Librarian’s’, Large Print text should be a minimum of 18 point type. In enlarging my PDF to 6 x 9 I don’t get anywhere near that size. So if you’ve done a LP book with larger type and reformatting I understand why your LP price is higher. There’s no need to post my comments if they are not relevant.

    I liked your Facebook live tonight. That was some G&T! Congratulations on the launch!
    Sincerely
    Rory

    Reply
  6. S. J. Pajonas says

    June 1, 2018 at 5:00 am

    I was wondering about this because I already use Vellum to make my regular paperbacks. They don’t give you an option of making two different paperbacks. So I was going to write them and ask them to add in this feature. It would be great if you could just hit the button and have the regular version and the large print done at the same time.

    Reply
    • Joanna Penn says

      June 2, 2018 at 6:42 am

      For different editions, I tend to copy my Vellum project and then adjust from there 🙂

      Reply
  7. Bette Stevens says

    June 5, 2018 at 4:14 pm

    Thanks for the tip! 🙂

    Reply
  8. Pamela says

    June 6, 2018 at 7:03 am

    This gets a little costly for those of us self-publishers who are still trying to get off the ground, revenue-wise.

    Reply
    • Joanna Penn says

      June 10, 2018 at 12:31 am

      This is not for beginners 🙂 More for those who are looking for additional revenue streams and already have all the systems in place e.g. formatting, cover design etc.

      Reply
  9. Vivienne Sang says

    June 9, 2018 at 7:54 am

    Thank you for this post, Joanna. I’d not considered large print, but am now going to look into it.

    Reply
  10. Jj Toner says

    June 22, 2018 at 1:10 pm

    Hi Joanna, I am in the process of setting up large print versions of the 4 books in my main WW2 spy series. I was wondering how to get them linked to the other editions on Amazon. You mention that above, but when I checked Love Second Time Around on Am in US, I couldn’t see the large print edition in there. In fact, I can’t find that edition of the book on Am.

    Reply
  11. C. K. McKenna says

    June 29, 2018 at 1:12 pm

    LP edition has been part of my plan all along. In fact, I set aside an ISBN for it. ALLI (I joined about a month ago), gave me good reasons to use Vellum , which I did with no problems. that an email from Vellum’s Brad couldn’t solve. MacinCloud let me use it on my PC. Unfortunately, neither Vellum nor Reedsy has an option for LP.
    Your May 25, 2018 post doesn’t really gave an alternative for DIYers so I would appreciate any suggestions of inexpensive software (like Vellum would be a dream).
    My book , Poppa: A Fictional Biography of Joseph of Nazareth, benefited from many of your & other ALLIers’ suggestions & is now on Amazon, Kindle & IS, but in need of LP.

    Reply
    • Joanna Penn says

      June 30, 2018 at 6:44 am

      Brad & Brad at Vellum are taking suggestions on this – so the more people who email them, the better! Hopefully they will add a bigger font size to a future edition of the software.

      Reply
      • C. K Mckenna says

        June 30, 2018 at 1:57 pm

        I neglected to say THANK YOU for your & ALLI’s hints & suggestions.

        Reply
  12. Connie Riddle says

    October 7, 2018 at 4:17 pm

    Hi Joanna,
    Thanks for the info on LP. Since my target audience is 45 – 60 yr olds, I thought I would want to offer this option. I’m 63 and sometimes read LP when my eyes are tired, not because I’m visually impaired!

    I want to distribute my books internationally and think I’ll go with Ingramsparks, KDP, and Kobo. Do I need to offer LP through all those outlets, or just Ingramsparks? Since I’m an Indie author, cost is definitely a consideration.
    Thanks. Love your Podcast!
    Connie Rosser Riddle

    Reply
    • Joanna Penn says

      October 8, 2018 at 7:16 am

      Hi Connie, You can’t do print through Kobo right now. So just use KDP Print and Ingram Spark for wide distribution for libraries etc.

      Reply
  13. Jacqueline Lambert says

    December 6, 2018 at 1:27 pm

    I have just published my first print book on Amazon. I selected ‘Large Print’ and the only version of the paperback showing on Amazon says ‘Large Print’ however on my dashboard, it says that selecting large print won’t affect the font size.

    By selecting ‘Large Print’ have I given buyers the option to buy large print or will all the books be large print? I can’t find an answer,

    What I want to achieve is a normal paperback with a large print option. Is that what I have done?!

    By the way, your book and website has been absolutely indispensable in my journey to self publishing. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate having all of these resources in one place.

    Reply
    • Joanna Penn says

      December 6, 2018 at 1:51 pm

      Hi Jacqueline, You have to upload a version with larger font size.
      It doesn’t do it for you. So it’s a completely new version of the book.
      Glad to help 🙂

      Reply
  14. KHC says

    August 16, 2019 at 1:06 pm

    Thank you for this information. I never would have considered a LP edition of my book until I ran into a fellow indie author at a book fair. He told me his LP books out-sell the regular font books. Can’t wait to get my LP edition up on KDP. I looked for more information on how to do it, and your blog post came up. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Joanna Penn says

      August 16, 2019 at 4:23 pm

      Yes, I think LP is an under-served market and indies are filling the gap 🙂

      Reply

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