Formatting a novel is mostly about flowing text through well-designed pages. Formatting a textbook is a different job. Almost every page mixes headings at several levels, exercises, boxes, tables, figures with captions and sometimes formulas or code. Each element needs its own design, and all of them must stay consistent across hundreds of pages. That is why textbook layout is priced higher — and why the cheapest quote is often the most expensive in corrections.
What drives the price
Page count
Pages are the basis of every quote. A useful estimate: one Word page usually becomes about 1.5 pages at 8.5×11 inches and about 2 pages at 6×9 inches, before adding figures and answer spaces. Workbooks with space to write grow faster than course books.
Density of elements
A history book with one image every few pages and a maths book with equations, graphs and numbered exercises on every page can have the same length and very different workloads. When you ask for a quote, describe what appears on a typical page, or send a sample chapter.
How the manuscript arrives
Clean Word files with real heading styles and editable equations can be formatted systematically. Equations pasted as images, exercises numbered by hand and figures embedded at low resolution all add hours. So do changes to the text after layout has started.
Editions and series
A teacher's edition, an answer key or the next level of a series can reuse the same page design. If you plan more than one book, say so at the start: building the template once is far cheaper than designing each book from scratch.
Our textbook packages
- Workbook — $890: up to 100 interior pages, custom page design, exercises, tables and figures.
- Textbook — $1,590: up to 200 pages, plus chapter openers, objectives, formulas or code and a navigable PDF.
- Textbook series — $2,390: up to 320 pages, plus teacher's edition or answer key, series template and cover.
All packages include a print-ready PDF for KDP, IngramSpark or your printer and the editable InDesign files. Full details are on the textbook design page.
Questions to ask any designer
- Is the price per page, per book or per hour, and what is the page limit?
- Will you design a sample chapter for approval before formatting the whole book?
- How do you handle equations, tables and code?
- Are the files built with paragraph and object styles, so the next edition is easy?
- Do I receive the InDesign files, and in which version?
- What counts as a correction, and what counts as a change of scope?
How to keep the cost down
Finish editing before layout, mark headings and exercises with Word styles, write equations with the equation editor, and gather every figure at full resolution in one folder. Our guide on preparing your manuscript for textbook layout walks through each step.