In our last post, I showed you what I spent within the first ~6 months of this self-publishing adventure, noting that the bulk of it was in the advertising. I should note that for this part of the process, that having a background in graphics allowed me to figure out a lot of formatting issues that a typical author might not be able to do herself. In this respect, I saved A TON on formatting and designing my book, which I have heard can cost in the thousands of dollars. So, although I gave you what I truly spent to get to the self-published stage, it’s safe to say that there is a wide variation in what this number could be. It may seem daunting to format your own book, but nowadays there are tools that will automatically do it for you, and forums to help you solve many technical issues. Again, patience and asking LOTS of questions will see you through this stage. There are so many folks out there who are willing to help, for FREE.

Now, I’m going to outline specifically for you each task I faced prior to the self-publication release date of July 2, 2014, and each task I faced immediately after.

When you look at each task in the graphic, keep in mind that each also  required a good chunk of research time to determine whether it was a worthwhile pursuit for my book and my budget. For instance, let’s take a closer look at spending the money on having an established and respected organization like Kirkus to review my book. Now, the benefit is, a lot of well-known organizations that buy books take these reviews into account when purchasing new books. But what if the review is bad? Well, you don’t have to use it! The down side is the cost: $4–500.00, which was my entire budget. So, right or wrong, I skipped it.

The After column is the Before column on steroids. Plus, you don’t really get to check off the Before column items. Then, as you progress in your book career, you reassess the avenues not taken that may not have made sense when just starting out.

The take-home message is, you will be responsible for EVERY aspect of your book with self-publishing. And though I’ve heard similar reports from traditionally published authors (that they must do a fair amount on their own to keep their books in the public eye), I don’t feel so bad. But there are so many additional things you have to take care of yourself, like formatting your own book properly and designing your own cover because there’s no production department, creating your own marketing strategy because there’s no marketing department, or even figuring out how to position your book properly in the market because there’s no market analysis department (we’ll get to this in a future post)!

I recently joined ALLi, an independent author’s organization, and during a webinar one successful indie author said that learning how to use all these marketing and social media skills is frankly NOT OPTIONAL. There are always companies out there who will offer to do these services for you, but they come at a hefty price, and unfortunately many have been reported to be predatory. In fact, the nightmares reported involve authors sinking tens of thousands of dollars into a marketing company, and being stonewalled, or not getting anything in return.

It is daunting to delve into this world, but take it ONE STEP AT A TIME.  A social media professional told me once that you should also just handle what you can, but whatever it is do it WELL. For me, it’s facebook, an e-mail list, goodreads, pinterest (admittedly I haven’t been on top of this one), and my website. Fortunately you can also link up social media sites; for instance, my goodreads blog gets automatically posted onto Amazon Author and SCBWI blogs, and I tweet my blog link directly from Mailchimp.

Remember, for every company out there who is willing to take your money to do the work, there is a free forum or group to help you sort this out on your own.

Finally, and most importantly, ask yourself this one question: can I afford to throw ANY amount of money down the toilet?

Throughout this self-publishing saga of mine, I think you all might have been wondering how much all of this has cost me. And it’s a reality that I wish I had been more concretely aware of prior to beginning this journey. I frankly would have made a few different choices with my budget. And that is why I’m sharing this.

There are so many multi-variable decisions on how to prudently spend a very limited budget to help promote book sales. And it is important TO set a budget, because the more you spend before you even start selling, the more you have to make up before you start realizing profit.  This graphic shows the money I spent from May–December 2014.

The decisions start immediately, before your book has even become a book, with selecting the appropriate ISBN (see March 29, 2016 post), a cost that ranges from zero to almost one-hundred dollars.

You’ll also notice directly under the ISBN line item, that the next entry is a copyright registration fee, and this one is non-negotiable.

Some POD platforms don’t require a title set-up fee, like the platform CreateSpace. The IngramSpark POD does charge this fee, and when I get to that part of my journey of why I used a second POD, I’ll repeat this cost chart format for that.

There is also a fee to get a Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN), but you actually have to decide to apply for a number assignment BEFORE you complete the self-publishing process. And even if you submit an application, your book may not be approved for an LCCN. So beware of where you are in your timeline, if this is important to you.

But the biggest variable in my costs was the postage fees for sending all the copies from the book giveaway. One of the reasons why this was the second highest cost on my list is because 1) I gave away a generous number of 20 copies, and 2) I didn’t limit the entries to the United States/Canada. I mean this is a multicultural, diverse book, so, what would be the point in NOT trying to capture a global audience, right?

Well, this logic may not have been the best for a first-time author with limited resources and NO established reputation. So, included in that postage cost was several books being mailed to various overseas addresses. Aside from the fact that for some I didn’t receive properly written addresses, to mail each of these pieces cost up to $12.00. And I only received one review out maybe 8 sent out overseas.

Then there was an issue with a copy not being received. So, another copy had to be sent.

Essentially, what I’m driving at is that the payoff of running a book giveaway on a global scale initially was not realized. If I did it today, I would have given away ten or fewer copies, and limited it to the US/Canada, at least, for this first book.

Overall, I think the costs for self-publishing are reasonable. Not counting the cost to purchase copies for your own sales at presentations (as you will eventually recover that), you may be looking at a budget of about $400.00. Which, from where costs were a mere decade ago (in the thousands of dollars), is quite reasonable.