Author Budgets and Self-Publishing
When I completed Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace, the original route to publication was going to be following the yellow brick road to traditional agency representation, finding the right publisher to buy the manuscript, and working to market the book. When that didn’t pan out, I chose to self-publish.
If you decide to pursue the self-publishing route, keeping track of costs is crucial, as the process can quickly get expensive. The first thing I recommend is setting a budget and then keeping that money separate from the rest of your finances. For example, I have a checking account dedicated solely to writing and publishing expenses.
I initially established a budget of $6,000 for the entire self-publishing process. This included research on various companies and covered several categories. These included: on-demand publishing programs, marketing/public relations, web design, editorial services, proofreading, and mailing. For the most part, I chose businesses that were referrals from satisfied customers who were also members of my writing groups. Next, I developed a table of the organizations I was working with, the services they were providing, and the proposed cost. Later I would add the actual costs; services rendered, and date of payment. I broke down my expenses like this:
On-Demand Publishing:
Publishing Package (I selected a premium package which offered free books)
Marketing/PR Programs Purchased:
Virtual Author TourTM
Reviews Package
Web Site Design:
Custom Design
Number of Pages
Programming
Hosting Costs
Editorial Services:
Editing/Proofreading
Mailing Costs:
Shipping books
In establishing your budget, give yourself enough leeway so your budget can increase if necessary without sending you into a panic or mortgaging your house to market your book. This is important because even with the best of planning, expenses can be overlooked. In my case, I neglected to account for one aspect: printing of review copies and shipping these to the marketing company. This added $437.67 in costs.
There is also the issue of maintenance costs, especially if you have a web site. In that instance there will most likely be annual hosting fees, and unless you are updating the site yourself, you’ll want to have enough money set aside to pay for updates to keep the site fresh and relevant. I went over my original budget by nearly $3,000 but I chose to do so because I added programs and services that met objectives I couldn’t accomplish on my own. With my expenses accounted for, I also know how much money it will take to break even.
Including several hundred dollars for future maintenance costs, I budgeted close to $10,000 to self-publish and market my book. Ten thousand dollars may sound like a lot and quite frankly, it is. Not every author choosing to self-publish is going to want to spend that much or be in a position to go over budget. What is important for any author choosing to self publish is that no matter what your budget, you’ve kept detailed records of expenses and know exactly how your hard-earned money was spent.
