One 90,000-word novel, three formats: from draft plan to Kindle, paperback and audiobook royalties

Most self-publishing maths gets done one format at a time: the draft, then the Kindle price, then a paperback that barely pays, then an audiobook quote. Each of those numbers depends on the one before it. The word count sets the page count, the page count sets the print cost, the print cost sets the paperback floor, and the word count again sets the audiobook's length, its price band on Audible and the narrator's bill.

This guide follows one book through all of it, in order, using four calculators on this site. The book is a thriller aimed at 90,000 words. On 12 October 2026 the author has 34,000 words written and writes on weekdays only. Every figure below is either the output of a calculator run with these inputs or a rule published by Amazon or ACX, checked against their help pages in October 2026.

This is a worked example, not financial or tax advice. Royalty rules change; check the KDP and ACX help pages linked below before you set a price.

Step 1: when does the draft actually finish?

The Book Length & Writing Goal Planner takes a target, the words already written, a daily goal and which days of the week you write. Set to Custom with a 90,000-word target, 34,000 current words, 1,200 words a day and Monday to Friday ticked, it returns:

• Words remaining: 56,000
• Pace: 1,200 words on 5 writing days a week, so 6,000 a week
• Time to finish: 9.3 weeks, landing around 17 December 2026
• Print pages: 300 at the 6×9 trade setting (257 at 5×8 mass-market)
• Reading time: about 360 minutes

Flip it round and the planner works backwards from a date. Enter a deadline of 26 February 2027 with the same Monday-to-Friday pattern and it asks for only 571 words a day across 19.6 weeks. That second figure is the more useful one for most people, because it shows how much slack the first plan has. If 1,200 a day is a stretch, a February deadline at under 600 a day is a schedule that survives a cold, a holiday and a bad week.

Read the planner's assumptions before you trust the date. It counts calendar weeks and multiplies by the days you ticked, so it assumes every ticked day produces the full target and it does not leave room for Christmas. It also stops at the end of the first draft. Revision, beta readers, a copyedit and formatting commonly take as long again, so a December first draft is a spring launch, not a January one. The guide to turning a word count into a finished draft covers the drafting side in more depth.

Step 2: the page count that pricing depends on

The planner's page figure is words divided by a fixed words-per-page number: 300 for a 6×9 trade paperback, 350 for 5×8, 280 for 6×9 hardcover. That is a fair average for a novel set in an 11 or 12 point serif, but the printed book will be longer. Front matter (title page, copyright, dedication), a page or two of back matter, and chapters that start on a fresh page all add up.

So carry two numbers into pricing: the planner's 300 and a padded estimate. This guide uses 300 and 336 pages, which is the planner's figure plus roughly 12% for layout. Trim size matters less than people expect for cost: at KDP, a 6×9 book still counts as a regular trim size, and only books wider than 6.12 inches or taller than 9 inches pay the higher large-trim per-page rate.

Step 3: the Kindle edition

The KDP Royalty & Book Price Calculator has an ebook mode with three inputs: list price, royalty tier and file size. A text-only 90,000-word novel with a cover image is typically well under a megabyte once converted, so this example uses 0.8 MB. At the US delivery charge of $0.15 per MB that is $0.12 per copy.

List price	Tier	Royalty per sale
$2.49	35%	$0.87
$2.99	70%	$2.01
$3.99	70%	$2.71
$4.99	70%	$3.41
$5.99	70%	$4.11
$10.99	70%	$7.61

The calculator follows KDP's own formula from its eBook royalty help page: 70% × (list price − VAT − delivery costs). The delivery charge comes off before the 70% is applied, so a heavier file costs you only 70% of its delivery fee. That matters more for illustrated books than for a novel. Put the same $4.99 book in at 6 MB, with maps and chapter art, and the delivery fee rises to $0.90 and the royalty falls to $2.86. The 35% tier pays no delivery charge at all, which is why the $2.49 row is a flat 35%.

The bigger news this year is the price band. As of October 2026, KDP's eBook list price requirements put the 70% option at $2.99 to $12.99 on Amazon.com, effective 7 July 2026. For nearly two decades the ceiling was $9.99, and plenty of older advice still says so. A $10.99 ebook now earns 70%, $7.61 a copy on the calculator, where the old rules paid 35%, about $3.85. The calculator does not stop you choosing 70% outside the band, so check the price against $2.99 to $12.99 yourself.

One more KDP condition matters for a multi-format launch: a 70% ebook must be priced at least 20% below the list price of any physical edition. A $4.99 ebook beside a $14.99 paperback clears it easily.

Step 4: the paperback, where page count decides everything

Switch the calculator to paperback and it asks for list price and page count, and assumes a black-ink interior. Here is the 300-page book at several prices, plus the padded 336-page estimate:

6×9, black ink	Printing cost	Royalty per sale	Lowest viable price
300 pages at $9.98	$4.60	$0.39	$9.20
300 pages at $12.99	$4.60	$3.19	$9.20
300 pages at $14.99	$4.60	$4.39	$9.20
300 pages at $16.99	$4.60	$5.59	$9.20
336 pages at $14.99	$5.03	$3.96	$9.99

Three KDP rules, all as of October 2026, produce those numbers. First, the US printing cost for a black-ink paperback is $2.30 flat up to 110 pages, then $1.00 plus $0.012 for every page, so 300 pages costs $1.00 + $3.60 = $4.60. Second, the royalty is the rate times the list price, minus printing: (0.60 × $14.99) − $4.60 = $4.39. Printing comes off in full, after the percentage. Third, KDP pays 60% only at a list price of $9.99 or more on Amazon.com; at $9.98 and below the rate is 50%. That is why the $9.98 row pays just 39 cents, and why the lowest viable price is $9.20 (printing cost ÷ 0.50). For the 336-page book, $5.03 ÷ 0.50 is above $9.98, so the floor jumps to $9.99, where the 60% rate starts.

The practical upshot for this book: a paperback at $14.99 pays $4.39, a little more than the Kindle edition pays at $4.99, and 36 extra pages of layout knock that down to $3.96. Sold through Expanded Distribution to bookshops and libraries, KDP's rate is 40% minus the same printing cost, so $14.99 pays just $1.40; the calculator models Amazon sales only. The paperback print-cost floor post explains why page count is the lever here. Trim size matters less than people expect: 6×9 counts as a regular trim size, and only books wider than 6.12 inches or taller than 9 inches pay KDP's higher large-trim per-page rate, which this calculator does not model.

Step 5: how long the audiobook runs

Audiobook length drives two things: what the narrator charges, since most quote per finished hour, and the price band Audible is likely to put the book in. The Script Read Time / Voiceover Timer accepts a manual word count, so there is no need to paste the manuscript. With 90,000 words entered:

Pacing setting	Runtime shown	In hours
Fast (160 wpm)	562:30	9 h 23 min
Custom, 155 wpm	580:39	9 h 41 min
Standard (140 wpm)	642:51	10 h 43 min
Standard + breaths/pauses	675:00	11 h 15 min
Slow (110 wpm)	818:11	13 h 38 min

The runtime is shown as minutes:seconds, so 642:51 is 642 minutes. ACX's own rule of thumb is that most narrators finish about 9,300 words per hour, which works out to 155 words a minute, so the custom row is the best single estimate for fiction: roughly 9.7 finished hours. The tool's Standard preset of 140 wpm is tuned for scripted video and explainer delivery, which is slower than audiobook narration, and its "breaths" option adds a flat 5% that a professional edit mostly removes. Its intro-music option (a fixed 20 seconds) doesn't apply. The guide to script pacing explains where each preset comes from.

Why the hour figure matters: ACX's pricing help page lists the price ranges Audible has typically used by length, and a 9.7-hour book falls in the 5 to 10 hour band, recently priced between $11.15 and $20.65. Past 10 hours the band runs $12.95 to $24.90. Audible sets the price, not you, so treat these as the likely range rather than a choice. Paying a narrator per finished hour? At a hypothetical $250 rate, 9.7 hours is about $2,425.

Step 6: ACX royalties under Audible's new model

The ACX Audiobook Royalty Calculator takes the distribution choice, a retail price, monthly unit sales and the narrator's share under a royalty-share deal. It uses the rates from Audible's new royalty model: 50% for exclusive distribution and 30% for non-exclusive. As of October 2026, ACX's "How royalties work" help page says those rates apply from 26 May 2026 to new titles, to every DIY title claimed after that date, and to older titles that enroll. The legacy 40% and 25% rates continue only until the end of 2026, when the old model is discontinued and remaining titles must move over.

$17.99, 30 sales a month	Per sale	Author per month
Exclusive, 50/50 royalty share	$8.99, split $4.50 each	$134.92
Exclusive, narrator paid up front	$8.99	$269.85
Non-exclusive, narrator paid up front	$5.40	$161.91

There is no non-exclusive royalty-share row because ACX does not allow one: a rights holder must choose exclusive distribution to offer a Royalty Share or Royalty Share Plus deal, so going non-exclusive means paying the narrator up front, and the calculator sets the narrator's share to zero when you pick it. The $17.99 price sits inside the 5 to 10 hour band from Step 5. Under the legacy rates the same exclusive sale would have paid $7.20, so a title still on the old model by December has a real reason to enroll. Paying the narrator up front doubles the monthly figure; at the hypothetical $250 per finished hour above, the $2,425 fee is repaid by the extra $134.93 a month in about 18 months.

Treat the per-sale figure as a ceiling, for a reason no simple calculator can fix: the percentage is not applied to the retail price. Cash purchases pay on net receipts, and most Audible listening is paid for with membership credits, where the new model pays from a "Member Value" pool shared across the titles a member listened to that month. A membership sale of a $17.99 book can pay much less than $8.99. Use the monthly total as a best case until your ACX sales dashboard gives you a real average. ACX also notes that a royalty-share producer is paid for seven years, so the 50/50 split does not last for the life of the book.

The whole plan on one page

Decision	Figure	Where it came from
First draft done	17 Dec 2026 at 1,200/day, or 26 Feb 2027 at 571/day	Book length planner
Paperback length	300 pages, plan for about 336	Planner + layout padding
Kindle at $4.99	$3.41 a copy	KDP royalty calculator, 70% tier
Paperback at $14.99	$4.39 (300 pp), $3.96 (336 pp)	KDP royalty calculator, paperback
Audiobook length	About 9.7 finished hours	Read-time tool at 155 wpm
Audible price band	$11.15 to $20.65	ACX pricing help
ACX exclusive, royalty share	Up to $4.50 a sale to the author	ACX royalty calculator

The order is the point. Settle the word count, turn it into pages before you price the paperback, price the ebook against the paperback rather than in isolation, and only then estimate the audiobook, whose cost and price both follow from the same 90,000 words. The exclusive versus non-exclusive comparison walks through the distribution trade-off in more detail. Both Amazon and ACX changed their rules in 2026, so check the live help pages again on launch day.