How Much Does it Cost to Publish a Book A Detail of Full Expenses

How Much Does it Cost to Publish a Book A Detail of Full Expenses How Much Does it Cost to Publish a Book? A Detail of Full Expenses How Much Does it Cost to Publish a Book A Detail of Full Expenses How Much Does it Cost to Publish a Book? A Detail of Full Expenses You already know. Thereis a cost to self-publish a book. Much like with any worthwhile endeavor, you may have to sacrifice some cash in order to make more down the road.â€Å"Remember to think of the cost of self-publishing as an investment, not a cost. [A book is] an asset that earns you money long-term.† – Joanna PennIts been an epic journey, from coming up with your idea to fleshing out the first draft of your book, and now, its time to launchyour bookout to the world for everyone to enjoy.However, you may be wondering, How much does it cost to publish a book? Self-publishing has broken down a lot of barriers for writers and dramatically lowered the costs of publishing a book, but there are still some involved.Heres what youll learn about the cost to publish a book:The rise of self-publishingHow much it costs to publish a bookCover design costEditor costFormatting costBook promotion costCost of publishing an audiobookAdditional publishing toolsSince the explosion of digital books on Amazon and various other platforms likeKobo, iBooks, and Smashwords,first-timeauthors and professional authors alike can write, publish and promote their books forless than $1,000.On the other hand, you can spend as much as $20,000 on self-publishing andbook marketing costs if you have that kind of budget. Let’s break down the costs of the self-publishing process.We’ll share some secrets to bring those costs down if you’re budget-conscious.NOTE: We cut down self-publishing costs covered in this post by detailing the best methods for writing, marketing, and self-publishing a book in our VIP 2.0 Self-Publishing Program.Learn more about it hereThe Rise of Self-Publishing If you’re an author dreaming of making your books available to millions of readers, youcanmake it happen. You only have to invest your time, some money, and a little bit of sanity.The sky’s really the limit. Self-publishing on Amazon has made it possible for us to all fly with our books. Are you ready to make yours fly?There are many factors that can affect the cost of publishing your book. What it really boils down to is this: How much are you willing to spend, and how well do you want your book to sell? The reason I ask these questions is because if you go cheap on everything, you could end up putting out alow-qualitybook that gets panned by bad reviews, and then it won’t sell.When publishing on Amazon, quality sells. And yes, quality costs money. But there are ways you can creatively cut costs and still put out a quality book. Let’s take a look. How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book?The cost of publishing a book varies greatly but self-published authors can expect to spend anywhere from $100-$1500 to publish a book based on additional book production costs like editing, cover design, formatting, and more, which we cover. cover design, formatting, and more, which we cover.To start, let’s look at a sample budget for publi shing a book.Now, these aren’t the high-end numbers for self-publishing. You can spend as much money as you want - this is a list ofbudget-conscious pricing for getting your book done within a reasonable budget.I’ll go into each of these in more detail, with links you can check out for yourself and find what works within your budget.Take some time to shop around see where to get the best value for the best price.However, these are some average prices you can expect when self-publishing your book. What You NeedDetailsAverage CostProfessional Cover DesignEach book NEEDS a professional cover. People judge books by covers and without investing in one, your book will fail.$100 - $600Professional EditingEven if you're the best writer out there, your book will still need a fresh, unbiased pair of eyes on it.$300 - $1,500FormattingA good book needs proper formatting for paperback, hardback (if you want this) and for Ebook. Luckily, this can be included with cover design at ma ny design firms.$50 - $300PromotionIf you want to run ads for your site or pay your launch team in any way, these are costs you will have to cover.$0 - $500Author ToolsThis includes courses, building your site, automated email services, writing software, and more.$175 +How Much Does a Book CoverDesigner Cost?Even though we’ve been told â€Å"you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover,† the reality is, we do it anyway.The book cover design can often determine whether or not people will actually pay for it and read it. Your cover will make or break your book right off the bat. If there’s any one cost you don’t want to go cheap on, this would be it.While it’s true you can outsource to someone onFiverr and get a decent cover for less than $20, it pays to do your research and find a better designer who is going to deliver a good book cover that sells your book. Cover designers arent  just talented creators. Many who do it as a living have inside market knowledge and tailor your book cover for your specific genre.If you do decide to go through Fiverr, check out this video Chandler Bolt recorded on how to use Fiverr.com to outsource your book coverdesign. I would recommend setting aside a budget of at least $100. This isn’t to say that spending tons of money will get you an awesome cover, but going cheap may hurt your sales in the long run.How Much Does a Book Editor Cost?Ahigh-qualitybook should always be edited by areal editor. Whether you hire a line editor or copy editor, you should get a professional to look over your work. Don’t try to cut corners here.Even if you’re a professional editor yourself with 30 years of experience, you need to outsource it to aprofessional editor.Trust me: A book that contains typos will get bad reviews and sales will drop flat. Where to hire a book editor:Jen Blood EditingMary Kole EditorialThe Novel DoctorMake sure you shop around when hiring a book editor. Sin ce book editors rates vary so greatly, you can often find an amazing editor as a fraction of the price of bigger editing companies, like NY Book Editors.If youre a Self-Publishing School student, we provide a rolodex of tried-and-trusted editors with reduced rates.A 40,000 manuscript edited through NY Book Editors can run you up to $2,700 for a comprehensive edit.NY Book Editors Cost CalculatorLove your book by spending the cash on editing. You can find quality editors atUpwork, or you can find the editors we recommend in our Preferred Outsourcer Rolodex if you’re a member of theSelf-Publishing School community.You can get a very short book, around 15,000 words, line edited for about $150-$250 if you search a wide variety of editors and find one with reasonable pricing.Ghostwriting, developmental or structural editing will run you much more than that depending on the length of your book and the depth of edits you require - prices run around $2,000 for 100,000 words.How Much Does Book Formatting Cost? When it’s time toformat your book, if you’re publishing on Amazon, you might want to get it formatted both for print and for Kindle. You can outsource the formatting of both your e-book and print book for around $60-$200.Fiverr has some goodformattersat reasonable prices. I’d also recommend asking fellow authors if they have any great recommendations for bookformatters.Once you find a book  formatter  you really like, hang on to their contact information  for future reference.Take a look at these costs of publishing to get an idea for this:How Much Does it Cost to Promote Your Book?When it comes to spending cash on promotional sites, you could empty your bank easily. Set a budget for yourself and go with the best of the best within that budget.Budgets vary but I’ll spend $29 on the low end forBuck Books and go as high as $1,000 if you add on a bundle of promo sites to launch your book.Again, this is a major money suck if y ou’re not careful; you can throw thousands into it and get mediocre results.For the best results on several paid launches, I have used:Bookzio($19-29)Robin Reads($35)Buck Books($32)BKnights($5-40)Awesome Gang($10)Bargain Booksy ($25 for nonfiction)BookSends ($40) When it comes to paid promotions, do your research on the top sites that can generate a good return.Check out thisdetailed list of promo sites - some are free!How Much Doesit Cost to Record an Audio Book?Creating an audiobook can run you anywhere from $300 to $3,000 depending on the length of your book and who you hire to do it.If you have a novel with multiple characters and want different people to read different roles, it can run towards the high end of the budget, especially if you’re using high-end talent.Here are some places you can hire audio book narrators:Upwork 27 Best Audiobook NarratorsACX NarratorsAudio Book Recording NarratorsAudiobook VoicesIf you have a good voice or acting experience and you want to give it a shot, you can purchase the basic equipment and record theaudiobookversion yourself.Check out thisblog postfor setting up your recording studio and doing it yourself.Additional Author Tools and ExpensesHere are some of the basic tools for professional authors. This will add a price tag to your book, but many of these are just a one-time payment. Other tools will bill you monthly.#1 Book Publishing Courses If you’re new to the game ofself-publishing, take a course like Self-Publishing School orjoin our Mastermind Community,for everything you need to get started.You could also look into taking multiple courses onUdemy.But again, you can spend a fortune on various courses. I would recommend sticking with one course until you complete it and branching out to learn other skills after you get your first big win.#2 An Author Website Building an author platform is a great consideration if you’re looking to expand your business, write blogs and promote your work. You can build an entire website or just a landing page with a call-to-action to get users to opt in.It’s also important to capture leads to build your mailing list. A lead capture form on your website helps you find quality leads and determine your primary audience.Here are some things you’ll need to look into in order to get started with building a website: Hosting:You can sign up for hosting with servers such asBluehost or Hostgator.The cost would be around $150 per year, which is very reasonable for website hosting. You will get a discount when you sign up for the first year, but pay full price when you renew.Domain Name:You can purchase a domain name to secure your brand and start driving traffic to your site. Check outName.com. A domain name will cost around $10-$15 per year.Email Subscription Services:If you want to collect email addresses, you’ll need to sign upforan email subscription service to manage your emails. There are several choices:MailChi mp: This is free up to the first 2000 subscribers. If you opt in to use their autoresponder service or other upgrades, you’ll have to pay around $10 a month depending on the number of subscribers.AWeber:This platform costs $19 per month for up to 500 subscribers.ConvertKit.com: ConvertKithas tons of value. Price is based onsubscribers but starts at $29 a month for your first 1,000 subscribers. This is now one of the most robust sites for building an email list.#3 Publish Under Your Own Company Ivetalked about this elsewhere, but there are perks to publishing your print book under your own company, instead of publishing with aCreateSpace (which has now merged with KDP) ISBN or another print-on-demand service.The ISBN (the 13-digit number above the barcode at the back of your book)letsbookstores and libraries know everything about your book, including the publisher.If you use a free, generic ISBN assigned to you by CreateSpace orIngramspark, youll limit your chances of a books tore carrying your own book.Free ISBNs eliminate your ebook from being stocked onOverdrive, for example, which circulated more than105 million eBooks in 2014 to public libraries all over the world.Getting your own ISBN and setting yourself up as your own publisher will cost $295 for 10 ISBN codes, but it will help you access all distribution channels.This isnt necessary if youre just starting out - its more important to publish your book and get it out there. However, if you are serious about building a self-publishing empire and making a full-time living from your writing, youll want to eventually invest in getting your own ISBN codes and setting up your own publishing company.How to Increase Book SalesWe all want to make cash with our writing. It may not be the only reason we write, but self-publishing your own book is still an investment. And like any investment, it’s nice to get a return rather than taking a loss. Here is a list of strategies you can implement to increas e your book sales, crush those low book sales, and get more eyeballs on your work.Run acontestthroughGoodreads.Reach out to podcastersandinfluencersin your niche and set up an interview. This has proven to be a big game-changer for authors like Hal Elrod and Tim Ferriss.Run promos every 3 months.After your book has been at regular price for a while, wait three months and then drop it to99 cents again. Set up some paid ads every other day for one week. Try using theKDP countdown strategy.Blog about the topics in your book.Set up a blog and get more traffic and interest in your work by writing about what you love. Traffic that lands on your page can be directed to yourAmazon Author Pageand that meansmore book sales!Write another book.Building acatalogof books is a great formula for generating higher monthly income.Apply for a spot on Bookbub.Bookbub is the big gorilla when it comes tobookpromoting. It’s expensive ($300 and up), but it’s a solid investment and you will ma ke your money back on the promo costs. You can check outBookbub hereand sign up for an author account to get started.4 Ways to Save Money on Your Book Costs Self-publishing can be expensive if you let it. Here are a few tips to help you save on your book costs, both now and in the future.#1 Save Money on Book Formatting (if you dare!) Write your ebookwithScrivener.Not only is Scrivener the number one author tool for writing and organizing your manuscript but, if used effectively, it can save you moneyonformatting costs.If you’d like to learn more about how it works, check out thisScrivener Webinarhosted by Joseph Michael with Chandler Bolt. Joel Friedlander’s The Book Designer also offers a bundle ofbook design templatesfor both fiction and nonfiction.These templates cost money but will save you money in the long run from outsourcing. I have personally been using these to do the formatting for my books.It can betime-consumingat first but once you get the hang of it, y ou’ll save money on formatting costs.#2 Build a List of Email Subscribers Although this topic deserves its own blog (or book), I’ll mention it here because if you build up an email list now, it can save you thousands of dollars in promotional costs down the road.When you launch your next book, you’ll have hundreds or thousands of fans waiting for your next release.Not only that, but these are the fans who will leave reviews if they join yourbook launch teamand purchase your book the first week it comes out. This drives your rankings up, and this drives sales even further. Sound good?You can start to build your email list by including a link to a lead magnet in your ebook. A lead magnet is an offer of a free, valuable piece of content that readers will get if they go to your website and subscribe to your email list.#3 Barter When You Can If youre just starting out with self-publishing and youre on a tight budget, look to barter services when you can. By coming to a deal where you exchange your services or something you have that is of value to people, you can save yourself lots of money.As a writer, maybe you have some copywriting skills.See if you can share some of that in exchange for design work from a cover designer. But it doesnt have to be just raw skills that you barter - Dana Sitargot a cartoonist friend of hers to do the illustrations for her book in exchange for $50 and 10 percent of direct sales of the book.Its a decision she doesnt regret, as the illustrations get her raving reviews. If youre on a budget, you don’t need to fully cut back on the quality of your book.See if there are possibilities to cut a deal and get the service you require to set your book apart.#4 Write a Great Book!This might seem like an obvious tip, but paying attention to the quality of your book throughout the writing process is going to save you money. The better your book, the less you’ll have to spend onediting.You will also gain a sol id reputation as someone who writes really well. This means loyal fans will spread the word about your book and your blog, your email list grows, and any future books you release will practically promote themselves.Well, almost.Your Next Step We are in a great era ofself-publishing.Anyone can turn their dream into a reality with just a few months of hard work, a bit of cash, and a great book idea. Weve broken downthe cost to publish your book so that you have a rough idea of what to budget. Writers have gone on to publish bestsellers with as little an investment as $1,000, while others have required up to $20,000. It all depends what you prioritize and if you can save costs in a manner that doesnt decrease the quality of your book.While money matters, remember the reasons you want to self-publish your book: to get your message out there, build authority, and add something new to the world.Spend what you can to make your book as high quality as possible. If your audience likes it, y oull be sure to hit your goals.