With three published novels under my belt, I figured I now have a decent set of data to talk about the costs involved in case it helps other potential indie authors or is of interest to readers. One caveat: This is my own personal experience. Costs for publishing a novel can vary widely. There is no one right way to do it.
The Publishing Industry
Before I talk about the different costs associated with self publishing, let me do a brief overview of how the industry itself is currently structured. The word “publishing” can mean very different things depending on who the publisher is and their business model. With that in mind, let’s run through the basics of the three types of publishers—traditional, hybrid, and self.
Traditional Publishing
Once upon a time, traditional publishing (or trad pub for short) was the way to go. It was the most lucrative, but there’s a change brewing. Why? Let’s talk about how trad pub functions on a basic level. A publisher will buy rights to an author’s book. In doing so, they enter a contract where the publisher agrees to help with formatting, distribution, and marketing in exchange for a cut of the profits. This means publishers are incentivized to sell as many of an author’s books as possible because it’s the only way they make money. Even more incentivizing? They offer an advance to authors, which is a lump sum payment ahead of publication.
The reason I say a change is brewing has to do with two basic transformations to the trad publishing business. 1) The advances they offer have dropped severely, and in some cases, they don’t pay advances at all. 2) They do next to no marketing and little promotional work for new authors, seemingly doubling down all their efforts on their big money makers. This is why you keep seeing the same handful of names (especially true in my own favorite genre of science fiction). If you’re wondering where all the new authors are, they’re still around. It’s just that the publishers aren’t promoting their work, and without promotion, a book is as good as invisible.
On top of this sad state of smaller advances and less sales owing to a lack of promotion, remember that publishers take a cut of an author’s earnings. And they’re not the only ones. It’s nigh impossible to snag a publisher in the English book market these days without a literary agent, and you guessed it, they get a cut of the author’s earnings too. Usually around 15% of the author’s advance and royalties. You can quickly see how small the payout could be for the author. The cherry on top? In trad pub, your book isn’t printed indefinitely. At some point, the publisher may decide to pull it from distribution. How’s that for depressing?
Hybrid Publishing
Can it get worse? Yes, it can. Enter hybrid (aka vanity) publishing. Their bad reputation is well earned. Unlike trad pub, hybrid publishers don’t take on risk; instead, they use a pay-to-play model. The author pays the publisher to publish their book. What a rip off, right? Why would anyone do that? I think a fair amount of the time, these hybrid publishers are simply preying off authors’ ignorance. New authors see “publisher”, and they think trad pub. Little do they know, you should never, I repeat, never pay a publisher; they should be paying you. If there’s any cost associated with publishing your book that comes out of your pocket, it’s a bright red flag. Take heed of it and run.
That being said, not all authors who opt to use a hybrid publisher are unaware of the situation. Sometimes, authors decide a hybrid publisher is the best of three evils. They can’t deal with taking on all the work (a la self publishing, which we’ll get to in a moment), and they haven’t had luck finding a literary agent/getting a publisher or simply don’t want to spend ages playing the trad pub game. There’s a reason it takes years for books to come out via trad pub; the process is slow. Some people, myself included, don’t have the patience for it. However, the pay-to-play model is just asking for problems. Nine times out of ten, the author loses out big. How big? Well, a typical hybrid publisher can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $50,000.
Self Publishing
For self publishing, the author takes on all the responsibilities. That doesn’t mean they have to literally do everything involved with publishing, though they certainly can. More often than not, they farm out certain tasks to other professionals specializing in those areas. With self publishing, the author gets all the royalties; however, that doesn’t mean if an author sells a print book for $14.99, they get $14.99, or if selling an ebook for $4.99, they get it all. For print books, the cost of the actual printing will come into play. For both print and ebooks, there are the distributors and retailers to consider who will take their cut, the amount of which varies by company. Even so, with self-publishing, the author does indeed get the biggest cut possible. If they sell books directly from their website or at events, the return is even better!
It should be obvious by now that I chose to go the self publishing route. I did this because it was the right choice for me. Every author has to decide for themselves what makes the most sense for them and their situation. I’m a bit of a control freak, I like to do lots of different things, learn lots of different skills, I’m a self-starter, anti-procrastinator, stubborn, etc. All these traits jive well with self publishing. For more details on why I chose this route, feel free to check out this post.
Costs Associated with Self Publishing
As I’ve only participated in self publishing, I can only speak to the costs associated with this type of publishing model. In doing so, I group the costs into those I deem necessary and those that could be considered optional but that I use and personally recommend, at least for those who aim to treat self publishing like a business endeavor.
Necessary Costs
Very briefly, the costs I consider essential to a self-published author include: an author website (and associated mailing list), a book cover, a book blurb, author proofs, and beta readers/editors.
You might argue that an author website isn’t necessary, but in this age of AI slop and constantly changing algorithms, it’s more important than ever for an author to have some agency. A website is still the best way for an author to present themselves to readers. It’s a platform entirely under their control and not prey to the punitive measures of algorithms. It also goes a long way towards legitimizing an author. If someone cares enough to put the time, effort, and money into creating and maintaining a website, they’re much more likely to come across as someone who views writing as a craft as opposed to a money-making scheme. Lastly, a website is the hub for that most essential of all tools in an author’s kit: the mailing list. I dive into the details of why a website and mailing list are so important for building a readership in this post.
Now, for the items directly related to a specific novel, we have the cover, blurb, proofs, and beta readers/editors. Each of these is monumentally important. A cover is an author’s biggest marketing tool; it’s meant to draw a reader in enough that they then read the blurb, the second biggest marketing tool. I cannot overstate how important it is that both of these look and sound professional. I hire professionals to illustrate my covers, do the cover designs, and provide feedback on the blurbs I write.
But the loveliest cover and blurb are useless if the book itself is poorly written, riddled with mistakes, and/or has major formatting issues. This is where the importance of beta readers/editors and author proofs come into play. For the content itself, I put the novel through two rounds of beta readers. Round 1 are people in my writers’ group or especially enthusiastic fans (e.g., my street team members). They graciously do the beta reading for free and help me immensely in spotting plot holes, poor characterization, pacing issues, etc. Once the novel has been tightened following their feedback, I move on to round 2, which consists of professional beta readers. They help me identify any lingering issues before the novel is finalized and ready for formatting.
Those sharp-eyed readers may have noticed I don’t have a step for an editor. This is a financially-based decision. I simply can’t afford the rates (good) editors charge at this time. Fiverr is ripe with “editors” who just use AI, and the last thing I want to do is pay them for not doing work and have my writing fed into one of those chatbots. I have a few editors in mind who I hope to hire if my writing ever takes off enough, but for now, I rely on my beta readers and myself to catch glaring mistakes. None of my readers/reviewers has complained about poor editing, so I’m happy to keep following this model for the time being. As for the formatting, I format my own books as described in this post, but I always purchase at least two author proofs to check the quality. First, to do my own final proofread on, and later, to do a final quality control check.
Optional Costs
The self-publishing costs I argue are worthwhile though optional include: buying ISBNs, registering a copyright, participating in advanced review copy (ARC) platforms, distributing reader magnets, and commissioning promotional art.
Every book sold must be assigned an ISBN, and while you can receive these for free from ebook distributors, such as Amazon KDP or Draft2Digital, you can’t receive free print ones. Additionally, free ISBNs can only be used with the distributor who granted them. Personally, I like to have complete control over my novels, ebooks included. I opted to buy a pack of 100 IBSNs from Bowker to use for all 16 novels I have planned. Note that, each format of a book requires its own ISBN. I always have an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover, so that is three ISBNs for each. It wasn’t cheap, but the pack of 100 ISBNs was the best deal for the 48 (3×16) I’ll need for my novels.
In a similar vein, copyright is not something an author has to pay for. They’re guaranteed copyright protections on their work as soon as it’s set to paper or word processing document or what have you. However, if there’s ever an infringement on an author’s copyright, it is much easier to make their case if they’ve registered it. As far as I can tell, this is a US-specific system. I live in Germany, and I haven’t found an EU equivalent to the US copyright office. That being said, anyone can register their copyright with the US as long as their book is sold there. The process is especially painless if the author registers their copyright prior to publication. In that case, the cost is only $45, and they can submit just the ebook rather than having to mail in a physical copy.
Now, moving on to marketing/promotional costs. An author can have the best cover, blurb, formatting, writing, etc., but if they don’t do any promotion or marketing, their book is likely to languish. There’s just too much content out there these days, and people have finite time and attention. Marketing and promotion are my biggest weakness, like most authors out there. I don’t know how to convince people to read my stuff or often how to even frame it beyond subgenre descriptions. Still, there are a few things I do that seem to work in garnering me readers. These include ARC reviews, reader magnets, and commissioned art for my website/Amazon pages/socials; see these blog posts for more details on ARCs and reader magnets.
My Stats
Without going into too much detail, here are my stats for my three novels to date:
- Recurring costs:
- Website: $320/year (they are cheaper options)
- Reader magnets (via BookFunnel): $100/year
- Canva subscription (for making posts for socials): $115/year
- ISBNs: $575 for 100 pack
- Per novel (includes costs related to cover, blurb, author proofs, beta readers, copyright registration, ARC platforms, art commissions):
- Nytho: $1,830
- Neuen: $1,150
- BitR: $1,360
Take Home
Can an author self publish their novels for less than me? Of course! If they stick with only ebooks, opt for budget covers (getcovers.com), rely on free beta reads and feedback for the blurb, their budget could easily come in at less than $100. But they have to ask themselves, is this just a fun hobby, or are they trying to get serious about their writing? If it’s the former, saving money is paramount. If it’s the latter, they need to treat their writing like an investment. That will mean spending more than they make, probably for several books over several years. I’m just over a year into this game, and I have to say, it’s the most grueling project I’ve undertaken, and this coming from someone who did a PhD. As they say, the life of a writer is hard and not for the faint of heart!
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