Thanks, Christoffer! The costs worry me too. That's one of the reasons I wanted to shed light on it with this article. That point about under estimating ASIN ebooks is a good one. I wonder if there is a way to know. Of course, it is possible to spend way less self-publishing than my budget suggests. I put together a conservative estimate assuming launching hardback, paperback, ebook, and audio book and assumed a decent marketing spend. That's clearly not for everyone.
I'm curious if you've had experience with Kindle Unlimited. My brief glimpse into it indicated that once your book is on Kindle Unlimited, sales go through the roof, but royalties fall to pennies.
Hi Joe. I do have experience of KU, but for fiction, not nonfiction.
There are basically two camps, with some authors and independent publishers advocating going all in with Amazon and KU, with the other camp believing firmly that one should publish "wide" and make sure your books are available everywhere. I've tried "wide" and it just doesn't work for me. My readers are predominantly on Amazon.
So I'm more or less 100% in KU, which leads to the all eggs in one basket dilemma. The biggest "problem" with KU is pulling books out and experiencing a significant drop in income. However, publishing through Amazon has enabled me to live as a full-time author since 2018, with a few Covid and inflation bumps along the way.
Congrats on living as a full-time author! That's amazing! I guess I'll have to experiment with KU versus wide distribution. If I'm understanding you correctly, I should try KU last because if you pull the book out, your sales in other areas of Amazon don't recover to pre-KU levels?
Well, the thing is you cannot realistically expect to achieve anything with just one book. I remember Hugh Howey (Wool) saying it's best to be discovered after you have written 10 or more books. When a reader finds you, and if they like your book, then the first thing they will do is look for other books you've written. If you've only got one book, then there's nothing for them to buy. This is true if you are in KU or not.
I don't do paid marketing. My next book is my marketing. I use short stories, novellas, and novels in series to get readers hooked. I am not earning a lot by any means, but neither am I spending lots of money on publishing. My approach is to write my best book, regardless of page length, edit, publish, and repeat.
In case other aspiring authors think, "ah, his partner must be earning the money, then" the answer would be "nope, it's just me." :-)
If I was to suggest a book that helped me get my head around creative writing and publishing, then it is "How to Write One Song" by Jeff Tweedy. I listened to the audiobook. Sure, it's about song writing, but it's all there. Tweedy nails it. :-)
Thank you Joe, this was really insightful! I’m in the beginning of this process myself and reading through your reflections has helped quite a bit! Good luck with the book launch, will keep an eye!
Wow, this is sobering, @joesipher. Over $25k for full self-publishing?! I never thought I'd get rich off the books I'm writing, but I didn't realize it could cost me *more than the last new car I bought* just to get it into the marketplace to be sold. Thank you so much for sharing this data. Good luck with Koehler and your book, and keep us posted! I'm subscribing now. :)
Thanks, Karen! Since writing this, plenty of people have pointed out that you don't have to spend $25K to self-publish, and that's true. If you look in Part I of the post, I split out the costs. Of the $25K, $15K is marketing there's $5K for an audio book, which is optional for many. Some people swear by getcovers.com for <$50 for a cover. So you can certainly self-publish for cheaper, but the $25K was an attempt at estimating a high quality, complete, and decently marketed effort.
This is really interesting, Joe. Thank you. However, it does worry me that new authors are paying such huge amounts of money for self-publishing and hybrid publishing. One thing to perhaps think about in terms of physical book sales versus eBook sales, is that many eBooks are sold without ISBN numbers. Most on Amazon have an Amazon ASIN number instead. As far as I know, eBooks without ISBN numbers are not tracked, so the sales of eBooks can be a lot higher, not to mention those eBooks without ISBNs that are "sold" via streaming services such as Kindle Unlimited. Here's wishing you all the best with your publishing adventure. I look forward to reading about your progress. Thanks again.
This is really helpful Joe. I've never done hybrid publishing either and don't know the specific pros or cons. This was helpful to see it all broken down, as well as the initial investments between each option.
Thanks, Christoffer! The costs worry me too. That's one of the reasons I wanted to shed light on it with this article. That point about under estimating ASIN ebooks is a good one. I wonder if there is a way to know. Of course, it is possible to spend way less self-publishing than my budget suggests. I put together a conservative estimate assuming launching hardback, paperback, ebook, and audio book and assumed a decent marketing spend. That's clearly not for everyone.
I'm curious if you've had experience with Kindle Unlimited. My brief glimpse into it indicated that once your book is on Kindle Unlimited, sales go through the roof, but royalties fall to pennies.
Hi Joe. I do have experience of KU, but for fiction, not nonfiction.
There are basically two camps, with some authors and independent publishers advocating going all in with Amazon and KU, with the other camp believing firmly that one should publish "wide" and make sure your books are available everywhere. I've tried "wide" and it just doesn't work for me. My readers are predominantly on Amazon.
So I'm more or less 100% in KU, which leads to the all eggs in one basket dilemma. The biggest "problem" with KU is pulling books out and experiencing a significant drop in income. However, publishing through Amazon has enabled me to live as a full-time author since 2018, with a few Covid and inflation bumps along the way.
Congrats on living as a full-time author! That's amazing! I guess I'll have to experiment with KU versus wide distribution. If I'm understanding you correctly, I should try KU last because if you pull the book out, your sales in other areas of Amazon don't recover to pre-KU levels?
Well, the thing is you cannot realistically expect to achieve anything with just one book. I remember Hugh Howey (Wool) saying it's best to be discovered after you have written 10 or more books. When a reader finds you, and if they like your book, then the first thing they will do is look for other books you've written. If you've only got one book, then there's nothing for them to buy. This is true if you are in KU or not.
I don't do paid marketing. My next book is my marketing. I use short stories, novellas, and novels in series to get readers hooked. I am not earning a lot by any means, but neither am I spending lots of money on publishing. My approach is to write my best book, regardless of page length, edit, publish, and repeat.
In case other aspiring authors think, "ah, his partner must be earning the money, then" the answer would be "nope, it's just me." :-)
If I was to suggest a book that helped me get my head around creative writing and publishing, then it is "How to Write One Song" by Jeff Tweedy. I listened to the audiobook. Sure, it's about song writing, but it's all there. Tweedy nails it. :-)
Thank you Joe, this was really insightful! I’m in the beginning of this process myself and reading through your reflections has helped quite a bit! Good luck with the book launch, will keep an eye!
Wow, this is sobering, @joesipher. Over $25k for full self-publishing?! I never thought I'd get rich off the books I'm writing, but I didn't realize it could cost me *more than the last new car I bought* just to get it into the marketplace to be sold. Thank you so much for sharing this data. Good luck with Koehler and your book, and keep us posted! I'm subscribing now. :)
Thanks, Karen! Since writing this, plenty of people have pointed out that you don't have to spend $25K to self-publish, and that's true. If you look in Part I of the post, I split out the costs. Of the $25K, $15K is marketing there's $5K for an audio book, which is optional for many. Some people swear by getcovers.com for <$50 for a cover. So you can certainly self-publish for cheaper, but the $25K was an attempt at estimating a high quality, complete, and decently marketed effort.
This is really interesting, Joe. Thank you. However, it does worry me that new authors are paying such huge amounts of money for self-publishing and hybrid publishing. One thing to perhaps think about in terms of physical book sales versus eBook sales, is that many eBooks are sold without ISBN numbers. Most on Amazon have an Amazon ASIN number instead. As far as I know, eBooks without ISBN numbers are not tracked, so the sales of eBooks can be a lot higher, not to mention those eBooks without ISBNs that are "sold" via streaming services such as Kindle Unlimited. Here's wishing you all the best with your publishing adventure. I look forward to reading about your progress. Thanks again.
This is really helpful Joe. I've never done hybrid publishing either and don't know the specific pros or cons. This was helpful to see it all broken down, as well as the initial investments between each option.