Writers Life | Financial costs of self-publishing

Publishing is not for the faint-hearted.

There are significant up-front costs. Below, I will list the ones I spent, but also give suggestions for how to avoid various costs.

First, let’s differentiate between self-publishing/independent publishing and pay-to-play publishing (known as vanity publishing and now calling itself ‘hybrid’ publishing). Self-publishing is more like project-managing. You will have to find a freelance editor, cover designer … Vanity publishing is a ‘package’ deal and will include many things in it that are already free and you can do yourself (e.g. upload to Amazon). These kinds of publishers actually make their money off the author and, therefore, are not motivated to sell your books. More here.

Now, let’s consider the kinds of costs that you need to consider. For many of these costs, I am assuming you will write more than one book.

1. Software …

a) Writing software – You can simply write in Word/Pages or even a Google document, however, there are specialist writing packages. I use Scrivener. It allows me to combine all the research, timelines, and outlines … in one place. I always do my first draft there. In addition, you can set a project word count goal and a daily word count goal, and I’m highly motivated by the changing colour of the ‘thermometer’ as it approaches my goal. Best of all, it is a one-off fee.

b) Book layout software – When I started self-publishing in 2017, I believed I had to have a professional doing this part of the process. Most professionals use something like Indesign. However, when I discovered Vellum, I was able to easily do my book layout. However, I was so lacking in confidence that I thought I’d never be able to do the pdf layout required for a print book and so I only bought the ebook software. You will save money if you buy both together. Again, this is a one-off fee of nearly AUD400.

Both Scrivener and Vellum can be trialled for free. Vellum is particularly good as you can use it for free until you actually want to produce an epub file for ebooks or a pdf for print which means you can really get familiar with it. It is also easy to use for ebook collections (I do this every time I have three books in a series) or Large Print.

Vellum is only available to Mac users, but there is a way to access it and pay an hourly fee on the Cloud. The software is so good that it might be worth using a friend’s Mac or buying a second-hand one simply for book layout (assuming of course, that you are going to write multiple books).

Atticus is another contender and seems to include the capabilities of Scrivener and Vellum for a one-off (considerably cheaper cost).

Please check reviews for anything you want to buy.

2. Editing

This is the most essential and the most expensive up-front cost to self-publishing. It will likely cost the most for a new writer.

There are different kinds of editing. Most new writers will need structural/developmental edits (big picture edits) and a thorough copy edit. You will also need final proofreading to check for typos…

There are two main ways to reduce the cost (unlikely to be much less than AUD1000 and may be up to AUD2000 for a first book). Firstly, you can learn as much as possible about self-editing. The more errors and issues a book has, the slower the edit, and the higher the cost. The other significant saving is to gather a team of proofreaders. I do this. I looked for people who are irritated by typos and have eagle-eyes for errors. They work together on an online Google document. This saves me time, as each error only has to be dealt with once.

3. Cover Design

Please, please, please don’t do this yourself unless you are a graphic designer. The key thing is to make sure your design fits the genre and that the fonts are correct.

Possible cost: AUD100-500. One way to save is having covers designed for a series all done together OR at least setting the template, so later covers in the series are faster to design.

4. Bits and pieces

a) ISBNs – these are bought only from Thorpe and Bowker – every format of a book requires one, although many people don’t bother for their ebooks and just accept the free one from Amazon and D2D … I have always used my own ISBN so that there is one ebook number and I own it. The ISBN company is a monopoly and charges different prices to people from different countries. Canadians are lucky, theirs are free but those from the US pay quite a lot. They can be bought one at a time (AUD44), 20 at once (AUD88), or 100 (AUD480) at once, with significant savings for buying more. As I have audio, ebook, print, and Large Print – that is four ISBN’s/book. Since I keep writing, I’ve recently purchased 100.

NB You do not need to pay for bar codes – they can be generated for free.

b) Newsletter – this is the easiest way to connect with your readers and you will spend quite a bit of your energy growing this list. Many newsletters have a free tier (up to 1000 or 2000 subscribers) and then a monthly fee after that. Popular newsletter providers are MailerLite, MailChimp, and Kit but there are many others. Do your homework and ask for advice on author groups and compare the prices …

You might want to pay for promotions to increase your number of subscribers. I found Ryan Zee helpful.

c) Book Funnel – this service can distribute your epub to potential reviewers and early readers. I still only pay the USD20/year but if you’re using it more, you can pay a monthly fee. It will also distribute audio and deals with all difficulties that a customer might have with downloading their books. It is especially useful to easily distribute ebooks/audio once you set up a direct store.

5. Optional extras

a) Competition entry costs – this is more common earlier in your author journey. You are particularly looking for competitions which give feedback. Most competitions cost between $50-100.

b) Memberships – you might want to be a member of a writing organisation. For example, Omega Christian Writers, American Christian Fiction Writers, or more broadly, Alli.

c) Advertising on BookBub, Amazon, Facebook. These are not necessary for new writers but once you have about five books released (and especially if they’re in a series), this may become part of your spending.

d) Promotions – again, you should have multiple books in a series, before paying for these. I wait until I have five books in a series before I do the biggest one which is a BookBub Featured Deal.

e) Printing books – this is my biggest cost. I do a lot of seminars in churches … and so have a good platform for selling print books. I do print runs of 400 copies of each new book and then reprints of 200 copies. This means costs of between $1200-2500. If you don’t have a place and reason to sell print books, then you’d be better using your print-on-demand company (Ingram Spark …) to buy small numbers like 10-20 copies. Make sure you have space for storage.

Final practical tips:

• Make sure you’re keeping a record of ALL costs. This is both for taxation purposes and so that you know when you break even. I use Excel spreadsheets and record the moment I’ve spent any money because otherwise you’ll forget.
• Be patient and careful – it is easy to waste money and there are plenty of people willing to take it from you! It took me four books in a single series before I broke even with my costs.

What costs would you add?

What have you found that is ‘worth the cost’?