Is self-publishing expensive?

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Hey, I wanted to respond to this comment question because I think it is an excellent, excellent point. So this was in response to a video I made explaining why indie books tend to be, or can be, a little more expensive than traditionally published books. So that’s on my profile. You can go back and watch that video, but then on that video, someone had this thought. This comment it depends.

In the grand scheme of things, is it that expensive to to publish, to self publish a book? It’s a complicated answer, which can be really nuanced. It depends. And it’s going to depend on your situation, your goals, on a lot of different factors. Let’s see how to address this.

Is it that expensive? It doesn’t have to be. You could publish your book using Amazon KDp Ingramspark now for $0. If you want to do all your editing, design your own cover, and not have any actual physical books on hand. If you just want to put your book up on Amazon or make it available through like Barnes and Noble through Ingramspark $0, that’s possible.

Is that going to sell books? Probably not. If you don’t put a little extra money and a little extra investment into the book to make it the best book it can possibly be, is there a chance that it will have mistakes that might throw readers off? Yes. Is there a chance that the COVID might look less professional than traditionally publish and that might throw readers off?

Yes, that is possible. If you don’t put any money into marketing, are people going to naturally come across your book? Probably not. If you’re just relying on like, free, organic social media posts, it’s pretty unlikely that somebody’s going to come across your book. So if you wanted to do that for $0, it’s possible.

If you just want the satisfaction of knowing that your book is out there, then you can do that for $0. And it’s not that expensive. If your goal is to try to make a career out of this, and so you want to go the extra mile, all the extra miles to make sure that your book can stay stand up with traditional books and you cannot tell that your book is indie published or self published, then you’re going to need to put a little extra money into it. And that level depends on you. It depends what you can do.

It depends how much money you make in the first place, kind of where your starting point is. Is it expensive? If you have a part time job and you’re making minimum wage, probably paying for a good cover, paying for an editor, doing all those things, pretty expensive buying books to keep on hand so that you can participate in events, so you can have books to actually sell. People, that’s gonna get expensive. I’ve seen writers that their spouse has a really good job and so they can afford to either not work or they can afford to put household money into their books.

So is it expensive for them? Probably not. It’s. It’s relative, right? It’s relative to where you’re starting.

It’s relative to how much, how much you want to spend or can spend. I think that’s really important to remember. When we see people out there either making this choice or that choice. When we see someone who has made it full time as an indie author who is doing it full time, what’s their background shouldn’t diminish the work that they’re doing. But don’t look at them and think they’re doing it full time.

Why can’t I figure this out? Because they might have a spouse who has a really good job. In fact, that’s probably the more the norm than the exception. Anyone I see doing this full time generally has a spouse who is covering like the other part of the income. Me, I have to work a full time job.

My spouse is also a small business owner. So between the two of us, we need both of our incomes at least right now, to make things work. Oh, I try not to put any household money into my book. So all of it come. All the funds I put into my book come from either side jobs I pick up, freelance work or books.

Money I’ve made on my books in the past, which is not a lot to me. It feels expensive. Anytime I have to pay a couple hundred dollars for a service, anytime I quote and get quotes on covers that could be anywhere from 5000 to 1000 or more, it feels expensive. That expensive to somebody else? Maybe not.

So I just think that’s really important to remember. If you want to just get your book out there and you want to spend $0, you could do that. It’s totally possible. If you have a goal of making this a career, you’re gonna have to invest. And yes, it can get expensive.

Between ISBN’s, uncover and editing and marketing and all buying books and doing events where you might have to pay for fees and things like that, yes, it can get expensive. So let me know your thoughts. I don’t know. It’s not, it’s not like answering the question, but I more mean this just as kind of a discussion and things to think about. When you see self published authors talking about their work and what goes into it, so cheers.

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