There are a lot of writers “out there”, and they are generally visible by their Blogs. That is not surprising really as blogging offers a golden opportunity to expose one’s writings to a very broad audience. However, some bloggers are more productive than others and the temptation to market a book can be very tempting. Imagine the sense of achievement when your book is in print for the whole world to see!
For anybody contemplating this “adventure”, there are a number of challenges which must be confronted. The main hurdle (based on my experience) is the initial cost to publish the book, and the ongoing promotion costs that must follow. The traditional publishers will often cover those costs if they are certain that sales will be sufficient to warrant the investment. That rather limits their perspective to already established authors, politicians and other celebrities.
A very practical alternative is to self-publish. There are a number of companies that will assist with this … but it is not free! They will, quite reasonably, expect to have their costs covered as they prepare your manuscript to be published in book form with all that entails. There are copyright details and ISBN registration and other facets which ultimately make a book available. When your book is available, it is unlikely that a book retailer will purchase copies unless there is a guarantee of reimbursement for books not sold (dead stock).
A very convenient solution to the inventory issues is Print on Demand. This means that when (e.g.) a copy is purchased from an on-line retailer, they simply order a copy to be printed and shipped.
Having said all that, there are some realities to be confronted. Below are the key statistics from my three books:
“Who Said I was up for Adoption?” – Published August 2015 – Cost to publish $5809.22 – Total Sales to date 118 – Current debt $6066.52
“Just Thinking” – Published September 2017 – Cost to publish $3835.06 – Total Sales to date 20 – Current debt $3822.20
“The Odessa Chronicles” (as this book was a collaborative effort, all costs are mine i.e. 50% of the total costs) – Published July 2018 – Cost to publish $2183.06 – Total Sales to date 88 – Current debt $1948.72
Why the significant costs to publish? It was because I valued an independent review of the draft and received valuable information covering structure, grammatical errors and overall presentation of the book. I also had the book covers professionally done. Finally, getting the book registered for sale and the administration involved in creating (and making generally available) the POD software had costs attached.
Why has my debt load generally increased? Simply because the cost of advertising has been greater than the royalties generated from sales. Advertising is quite expensive and, with book royalties generally around the $3.00 to $4.00 per book, must be considered carefully.
It is difficult for me to express the immense satisfaction I have felt with getting those three books published, especially when the reviews have been so positive. The fact that the revenues from sales have not covered my costs is rather immaterial when balanced against the pleasure of knowing that people have enjoyed the “fruits of my labour”!
So should you publish your book? Absolutely!
A New Direction Perhaps? 
I very much appreciate your transparency in this post! I am sitting on a children’s book I authored, nervous about the publication process but fully knowing I want to take it to the next level!
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The process (I found) very straight forward once I involved Friesen Press. The only proviso that I would stress, and at the risk of repeating part of my Post, is that your first goal is to get your book published. Your first celebration should be when the first sale is made. Any thoughts about making lots of money from sales should be secondary. i.e. For anybody whose main goal is to make money from self-publishing, I would suggest they seriously consider an alternative business route!
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Good luck to you.
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Thank you, although for anybody contemplating self-publishing their work, the main component is marketing. Nobody can buy a book that they don’t know exists, so making (ideally) the world aware of a book is really important …. and the cost to do that is likely to be prohibitive, so a compromise must be reached.
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Compromise can be the means through which wisdom is reached.
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Very perceptive. 🙂
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Great info. Yes, the initial expense with your publisher was something that encouraged me to put the brakes on publishing. Now with this new info, I may revisit the idea down the road. Thanks, Colin!
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Go for it Monika. You will get so much pleasure, and a sense of achievement, when your work is published and you start getting reviews. You must however also be prepared to write-off your expenses.
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Thanks, Colin. Yes, I quickly came to the conclusion this was a venture not for the faint of wallet. 😉
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Hi Monika – Obviously, I only know you from the “picture” you have presented in your Blog over the past few years, but I get a sense that you are not particularly money driven hence my encouragement to just go for it! For anybody reading this who is thinking in the context of making money from self-publishing, I would suggest that you research your options very carefully before committing to anything.
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I second Colin in saying Go For It! It truly is an incredible feeling to hold your own book in your hands. 😊
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Thanks for explaining that! I’ve sometimes thought of publishing a book (self-publishing) but haven’t really investigated the opportunity.
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Go ahead Ann, but keep an open mind about the revenue aspects. This especially important when self-publishing because you are going to be self-marketing. Advertising here in a single bus shelter for 1 month was (if I recall correctly) around $500.00. My question became … what are the chances of a single bus shelter selling around 150 books in one month? I did not pursue that route!
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That’s a lot of debt, to publish a book. I think you would have to be very dedicated to go that route, and be able to afford to take a big loss. It’s a gamble, and I hope your gambles eventually pay off.
I’ve only paid for one book cover, having designed the covers for all the rest. I also self-edit, and do all the other work. Thus, my book writing endeavors have cost me a lot of time, but not much money. As for marketing, I’ve learned that the least expensive and most effective marketing technique is to offer my books for free.
My approach to self-publishing is sort of like blogging while writing very long posts. It’s all free, and my main expense is just time.
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Hi TG – Self editing is a questionable process because we (the author) can overlook so much. i.e. we know what we meant to say, and that is what we tend to see. In my case, a professional edit brought word repetition to light; missing “a” and “to” and a few other easy words to overlook; suggestions on layout and chapter structure. Their (WordPress) perspective was that a/. the book cover must say “pick me up”, and b/. the cover writing must say “open me and read a little”. Without those two factors, a potential for a book sale is reduced.
As for my financial situation relative to the books? I went into it knowing that I may not recoup the money. In fact FriesenPress were very emphatic about a book of poetry (“Just Thinking”) being a hard sell due to the “niche” market sector. However, I am not money motivated (a topic for another day perhaps) so while covering my costs would be nice, I basically went into it being prepared to write-it off as a “cost to fulfill my desire to publish!
Offering your books for free is a wonderful strategy but, of course, there is no direct revenue to offset whatever costs you had. I am pretty sure that you, like me and many other authors, are just pleased that our books are being enjoyed. It’s a kind of sharing with the world, and we need so much more of that!
Always nice to hear from you TG! 🙂
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And to that I’ll add that anyone who self-publishes must be prepared to take a loss, no matter how much profit they may hope to make. Without such preparation they could easily find themselves in a financial bind. Let it be a labor of love first, and any profit second.
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Absolutely! I’ll raise a Scotch and ginger (with ice cubes) to that! 🙂
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