HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO SELF-PUBLISH? | What I Spent on My Three Books (Author Money)

you guys have been asking me this question for a while now how much did it cost me to self publish my books these guys right here honestly I've been scared to do this video because to do this video I would have to sit down and do the math and that was terrifying but I did it and it wasn't so bad and I have this spreadsheet that I'm going to refer to which I should print hold on one second and I even projected what I hoped to spend not hope to spend but might have to spend on my future series the fantasy series of four books so I'm gonna walk you through I actually made this fancy little spreadsheet here I'm gonna actually show you this at the end and maybe throughout the video and basically it's the categories all the different categories that I want to start with and talk about first and then what I spent in each category per book okay are you guys ready for this I'm gonna try to keep it like a fast video so I'm gonna go really really fast okay let's do this first category and by the way I should mention that each category I will tell you how important that I personally think it is technically you don't have to do any of these things but if you want to put out a quality book and I know that you do then I think that you should take some of them into consideration because some will really really help your book be much much higher quality and then others are really not necessary but we'll go into that so I'm just gonna list out all the categories that I have and I'll even flash on the screen for you and just scroll down I have editors cover design formatting proof copies copyright copy writing your book is $55 it's a one-time thing as long as you're smart and you wait until the end when you have your full finished complete totally edited and done story then you just submit it you pay $55 at the US Copyright Office and I can link a video to this cool channel where I had somebody walk me through how to do that my first time I'll have to look that up but in my mind that's a pretty important category for your book and then the next category is the print on demand company which I put in parentheses Ingram spark because I personally use I used create space before it closed and now I use KDP and both of those are free so this is like if you were only to use that it's free if you want to use engrams it costs about 50 bucks to upload it's like 49 bucks and then if you have any errors it's usually 25 bucks to fix an error every single time and so don't have any errors basically is the moral of that story by the way I know this is gonna make the video longer but I can't like not say it if it's gonna help somebody out so personally I like to get my book all perfected on KDP before I even like touch and gross bark and then I worry about Ingram spark because then you mostly have it perfected and we'll avoid this reuploading fees that I mentioned but anyway proofreading other categories like for the Corgi book I had a website called be funky and then below the actual book itself categories are other categories such as the marketing are copies which is advanced reader copies mailing costs for those art copies any ads you want to do whether Facebook or Amazon or something else giveaways and then another other category which was Kirkus Reviews and I'm just going to talk about it right now because I can Kirkus Reviews is something that I had heard was really really good for marketing your book and so I did that for my debut but I do not think it was worth it this is just my personal opinion it costs almost as much as absolutely everything else combined like literally was half of my expenditures I heard the word that I want it was half my spending and I do not think it was worth it I think I could have asked an amazing author friend to give me a quote for the back of the book instead or the front of the book which by the way I did that for pearls number if you look at the back of pearls number you will see my friend Kim chance and my friend Jesse Eliot and they wrote these amazing awesome awesome back blurbs back blurbs is that the right thing to say I don't know praise praise for pearls number and I am so proud of this because it means so much more to me coming from a friend anyway and the this is free because they're amazing people and so I don't know I'd recommend doing this and then the last category is the business category which is just my publishing company and I don't recommend doing this everybody I think you really should only be doing this if you have a very specific purpose and understanding of why you need it for me I like to have it for tax purposes I also like to have it because I plan to do other things under my company as well and at the time I needed it to do Ingram spark because from my understanding they wouldn't let an individual use their company you had to be a company to use Ingram spark I don't think that's the case anymore you'll have to look into it and let me know below if you want but yeah I had a lot of reasons for creating a publishing company so I'm gonna go through that really quick before I do the books first is of course creating the publishing company going to the Secretary of State website and creating my LLC and there's a couple other options for businesses as well every single state is different but in Minnesota it cost me one hundred and fifty five dollars to create a company the next category in the business category is the ISBN numbers there's a reason that I purchased ISBN numbers and it is connected to the business because if you're wanting to publish your books under business you also have to use your own ISBN numbers but if you don't want to do this if you don't have any reason to then use the free ISBN numbers on KDP and like createspace had because the only reason that I need ISBN numbers is because also I'm using Ingram spark so I do recommend if you have no reason to buy them don't do it there's no reason to just use the free ones but I had to purchase ten and so on Valkyr the websites called Belle Kirby o WK e are to buy is beans in the United States it was two hundred and ninety five dollars and the last category is my website which again you don't have to pay for this you can actually do this for free I use Wix and I do the paid version but there is a free version that you can trial and tell you're ready and if you even want to upgrade which I did for a while I had the free version I love Wix absolutely so I upgraded to their premium plan with the store and that cost me about one hundred and thirty five dollars so all total for just the business side not related to the books I spent five hundred and eighty five dollars but now let's talk about what you guys are all really here for which is the books themselves and I'm gonna start with Evelyn's number technically the first book Evelyn's number started out like this and I had an editor that I got off of Goodreads and she was starting out her business so she was brand new and she cost about three hundred and fifty bucks I didn't go back and look it up but I think it's a little less than that and she did by word and it was about a hundred thousand words at the time that was the first class and then of course the cover was one that was done by my friend who does graphic design and she's very talented so we worked on this together and I paid her 200 bucks to do this cover now I'm not going to list this in the total class for Evelyn's number because I'm just talking about the very first publishing but when I went and did the new cover because it was actually like in a series and I was paying for this one first I got an amazing discount on the second cover and it was actually less than the first one I didn't look it up and it is in pounds so I can't tell you right now I just I can't remember but this was actually less and this is the the only thing that I did when I published this second edition was pay for the cover but I'm not counting that coming back to the original book and we're gonna keep talking about just what I spent on the first edition the next category is formatting I have a whole video on formatting because I personally believe that it is possible to do yourself but you can also hire somebody for it so I did not pay for formatting for any of my books I used a website called DIY book formats calm I'll link that below for you guys and I'll link below my video on how to format and improve copies I spent about $75 and proofs because it took me a lot of proofs till I figured out what I was doing formatting was intense I screwed it up a lot let's just leave it at that and then when it comes to the copyright of course it's 55 bucks for every book so I did that the print-on-demand company I put in parentheses Ingram spark because KDP and create space are free I used create space at the time and Ingram spark and so Ingram spark is $50 to upload but I had a discount code for participating in NaNoWriMo and so it was free I did not have to pay for that and then the last category in this section is proofreading and I happen to personally love using my friends and family members to proofread so I say to them I'm gonna give you a free copy of the book in advance if you help me proofread so they did that for me and they read from those proof copies that I told you about and so I did not pay anything for a proof reader I did not hire anybody for any of my books and that was zero in that category so the total for the first edition of evelin's number before any of the other expenses just the book itself was six hundred and eighty dollars but then we have to talk about the other categories I had a budget of I think about a hundred bucks for sending out our copies to advance you know advance reader copies and so I expected to only spend one hundred but when you add mailing to it it was another about a hundred bucks so it was actually a total of about two hundred bucks to send those out and it was like ten books but I mailed more than one like I think three or four of them overseas and I did not know how much overseas shipping would cost it's about twenty-five bucks typically in that range versus in the u.s. if you use media mail fYI it's about two or three bucks depending on how much it weighs so always use media mail and be very careful when you're mailing things overseas be prepared for that extra cost so about two hundred bucks and then I did not spend anything on ads I did not spend anything on giveaways but I did do the kirkish review that I told you about which was about five hundred and seventy-five dollars yeah yeah if you're listening to that and you're like thinking it out you'll realize that that's almost the same price as how much I spent on the whole book like oh I regret that so much as far as I can tell there's been absolutely no value in me doing the Kirkus review so I just want to let you guys know I personally don't believe that it's valuable and I did not do it again in the future but if you count the Kirkus Reviews and all the marketing stuff and the book itself the total that I spent on Evelyn's number are you ready for this was 1450 $5.00 the next book I want to talk about is the confident Corgi and this I had just come off of obviously spending a crapload of money I don't think I said this but if you add up the 585 plus the basically 1,500 bucks for Evelyn's number the total is 2040 dollars so after spending that much on my first book in my business in a very short timeframe I obviously was in the mindset to save as much money as possible because this isn't even what I'm basing my career and this was more of a side project a very fun children's book if you don't know I did all the cover design myself all of this is me I had so much fun doing it I don't think I would ever do cover design for my um young adult books but when it comes to a fun project like this why not so this is all me I used other website called canva which is free you can check out my whole series on how to create a children's book if you want to know all the details about this book I go super in detail but I also did not hire an editor so that was also zero dollars so zero zero so far for formatting I did all the formatting in here myself and that was super fun I used canva I did actually use a website called be funky to create like cartoon versions of the photos so when you look at this you'll see that there are cartoon versions of actual photos some people thought that I drew them I did not I am not that good at drawing not even close so yeah I I'm kind of skip down to the bottom there but the website that I use to create filters cartoon filters for the photos was $5 for a month membership so jumping back up to proof copies it was about 750 for a proof and I think I had to do about three of them total so it's about 21 dollars 22 bucks I did copyright it that's 55 I did have to pay the 50 bucks to Ingram SPARC to upload this I did not have any discounts at the time so I did pay 50 bucks to get this on Ingram spark but I wanted it on Ingram spark for my book signing a couple months later so I needed it on there so that was worth it and then I did not pay for a proofreader any more than I paid for an editor because again it was only like I don't know maybe like a hundred to three hundred words so it's not like I needed that but I did have friends and family look over it just like always I just showed it to friends in the area and then I actually did have a couple art copies sent out which was a total of about 15 bucks I had just two copies sent out to friends in advance to see what they thought of it and they helped me come up with extra cool things like these boxes or let's see if I can show just some fun cartoon like features like this and so that was very worth it but I'm getting ahead of myself the total for just this book was a hundred and thirty one dollars so I'm not bad compared to the other one right and then of course add the 15 bucks for sending out proof copies or no are copies I should say and then it was about a hundred and forty-six dollars total that I have ever spent on this book ever it's all I'm ever planning to spend and I just I had such a great time making this totally worth it I don't know if I'll make more in the future but it was a lot of fun I have to move down again now this is probably the book you guys have all been waiting for because you get to see what I've learned like what did I change and spend differently when it came to this book after I'd done the first book so the first thing that's really drastic is how much I spent on the editor I realized how important an editor is and I definitely invested quite a bit more I used a company called Reed Z to find my editor I loved working with her she was amazing I did four payments like a schedule so I didn't even realize how much I'd spent till I added it up but it was 1129 dollars and 72 cents oh yeah that was a lot and honestly I'm just gonna tell you guys I think that especially with your debut novel an editor is extremely valuable extremely worth it especially to catch things that you don't know about but now that I've done to editors and I realized that I have a background in editing I actually went to school originally to become an editor and then I pursued other things so I have a lot more training than most people so I don't know what I'll do in the future but I might go some more some cheaper routes because that was intense but I don't know it's also very worth it and like like I said already in this video your cover design and your editor are my top two priorities anyway like the ultimate most important things to make a quality book so I don't know I think it was worth it and I'm excited to hear what you guys think cuz she helped me out but I did send her a really really clean copy as well and the next category is covered design as you know this beautiful cover it was made by eight little pages and they also did design the redesign the first book so that they look like this together and they look amazing but like I said they're in the UK so they were in pounds and I had to translate two dollars and so I don't know if this is exact anymore cuz it's been a while it's been a few months it might have changed but it was about two hundred and eighty five dollars for this cover and you guys already know that I did the formatting myself if I haven't mentioned it already I'm a little scattered because I keep moving down to film this but I do have a video all about how I format and I'll link that below and maybe in the cards to so you guys can watch if you're curious on how to format your book for free I do use a website called DIY book formats calm to get a template and then I develop it into the formatting that you will see here which I don't know I think it's beautiful this is the proof copy shoot I'll use this one to show you I don't know if you can see but just have like a pretty little page and I've got like a hoops father stuff yeah I think it looks good but anyway back to pearls number I made a map and like this is almost the last version so it's looking a lot than it did but dang the map made me have to order a lot more proof copies and I still have another one coming this is not even the final because of how close it is there but yeah this is a proof copy and I spent quite a bit I spent about 70 bucks on proof copies and then in the copy writing category of course has spent 55 again to copy right pearls number fortunately I did get another code for the print-on-demand company they occasionally will just put up codes as well for free uploads so I was able to upload Pearl's number for free and then I was able to get a code when things went wrong and I also managed to get all those reuploads for free thank goodness because there was more than one that could have been really expensive all those changes and then of course proofreading I asked family and friends again and I did send out our copies to those people who agreed to help me out but I'll include that in the next category so I spent zero on a proofreader okay adding that up for just pearls number all by itself I spent one thousand five hundred and forty dollars and I don't know if you're paying attention at all if you kind of have been writing things down but that's actually not that much more than I spent on Evelyn's number the first time around but it's very different where I put the money I did not do Kirkus Reviews I did quite a bit more on the editor and I just figured out more where I want to put the money but we're not done I also have the marketing category when it comes to the ARC copies that I sent out like I mentioned I sent to a bunch of new friends that I didn't have the first time around and they helped me with like proofreading and also with the blurbs on the back that I showed you guys so I think I sent about eight copies of the book out and it's about ten bucks you know mailing directly from Amazon so no mailing cost there because it's directly from Amazon or KDP and CreateSpace so I sent about $80 worth of our copies to people for helping me proofread and the next category is ads which I just realized that I haven't really mentioned but I have never done ads during a release I think I've tested Facebook Ads once I've tested the Amazon ads two or three times and Facebook ads are way too expensive Amazon ads are only like you only pay if people click on it so it's very cheap but I haven't found a lot of value in either one of those so I haven't really pursued them at all so I'm not counting that in my categories because that was just some random month that I tried that and then giveaways this time around I am doing giveaways for pearls number as you guys know I did tons of giveaways and so my budget for that counting mailing was a hundred and fifty bucks so I tried to keep everything that I was doing within one hundred and fifty bucks and of course I did not do Kirkus Reviews so if you add up the book itself plus all the mailing the total that I spent was one thousand seven hundred and seventy dollars on pearls number I know this video is getting really long but in case you're curious I really quick want to run through the sheet that I made right here with the same categories for my fantasy retelling series of four books so I'm just gonna run through this in case you're curious this is again just estimates not what I spent because I haven't spent any of it yet but it's kind of freaking me out and giving me an idea of what I need to start saving for the first category is the editor that's the hardest to nail down because like I said every single editor is different and I have not hired an editor yet but I'm guesstimating about a thousand per book which is insane I hope that I can find something for less than that so four thousand four four books that's my estimate and then the cover design I did hire a cover designer I hired eight little pages again they're amazing they're super talented and so I'm actually I put pounds to dollars again so this is a estimate but it's mostly it's pretty close to what it should be and I'm going to be spending four four books 1105 dollars I'm of course gonna do the formatting myself the proofreading is going to be friends and family and then when it comes to proof copies I'm guesstimating about 100 bucks per book so 400 bucks total and copy writing all four books is going to come up to two hundred and twenty dollars if it's fifty five bucks each and then the publishing on-demand company I can't guarantee that I'm going to have a discount although I hope to find a discomfort at least some of these so estimating 200 bucks if I don't have any discounts for a grand total of are you ready for this five thousand nine hundred and twenty-five dollars basically just under 6k I'm still breathing oh my gosh and it gets worse you ready for this I also need to purchase 10 more ISBN numbers because I don't have enough left so that's gonna be $295 then I also am expecting I will need to upgrade or not upgrade but renew my Wix website so I'm going to include that cost in here for the next year which is a hundred and thirty-five dollars ish unless they change things so if you add those in the total now that I need to spend next year to get all these books out to you is 6355 dollars oh my gosh it's fine it's cool this is the reason that I started my patreon page I don't think I've told you guys this yet but I ran these numbers and then I was like okay what can I offer people how can I offer my services to start you know saving up for this because I really really am so excited about this fantasy series I feel like it's my absolute best rating yet it's my favorite stories yet I'm so pumped to get them out and into your hands but I really need help to do that so I don't know if you're curious if you've even heard about me talk about my patreon page before but that is why I created it I just wanted a place where I could help other writers to write and publish their books and I could invest in you and then in return you could help me and support my book babies so whether you want writing help or whether you just want to support my books and find me on patreon either way you can use the link below I'm testing it through the end of the year so definitely come hang out there with me now if you want to find out about it if it seems to be going well and if you guys are excited about supporting me and helping me reach this goal then awesome and if not then I will look into offering different services and finding stuff that you guys think is valuable so I would love your feedback definitely comment below if there's something that I could be offering or if you like the patreon page but you think something could change I would love to know that and I really appreciate you guys so I just want to say thank you in advance if you've bought pearls number or Evelyn's number if you would be willing to review on Amazon or Goodreads but especially Amazon that will really encourage other people to buy the book too and will help me to make the money back and to also pay for this book so even if you don't have money to help me out it was like deeply help me out if you would tell your friends about these books share them with the world and share your review share what you think of them everything helps like there's a lot of free ways to help out an author just by supporting their books and telling people about them so I it means the world to me seriously that you guys do that thank you so much and speaking of reviews I'm so excited because next week I'm hoping to do a reactions video from what you guys think of pearls number so I'm hoping to share some of those Amazon reviews if you get yours in in time I'm probably gonna be starting to edit that video as you watch this video so hurry and get your Amazon review and and I will try to include that and any Instagram posts or Twitter posts or anything on social media if you want to tag me and tell me how you feel about pearls number I would love to include that in next week's video I think that's everything I just really appreciate you guys thank you so much for being here and I will talk to you again next week bye [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Bethany Atazadeh - YA Fantasy Author

Views: 87,023

Keywords: authortube, Self publishing, indie author, cost of self publishing, cost to self publish, bethany atazadeh, self publish book, book costs, how to self publish a book, how much does it cost to self publish, how to self publish a book on amazon, HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO SELF-PUBLISH? | What I Spent on My Three Books, author money, how expensive is self publishing, self publishing costs, what i spent self publishing, self publishing how much, how much do you pay to self publish

Id: xVVAx-B16N4

Length: 26min 41sec (1601 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 15 2018