- Are you wondering about the cost
of self publishing on Amazon?
And is self publishing really still worth it these days?
Well I'm gonna discuss all that and more,
so make sure you stay tuned.
This is Self Publishing with Dale.
And if you would like to learn more
about publishing books that sell
and building an unstoppable author brand,
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Make sure you stick around to the end
because I'm actually gonna provide you with a free resource
that's going to guide you from point A to point B.
And it's gonna make a lot more sense
of some of the recommendations
I'm gonna give in today's video.
So I've been self publishing
for a little over five years now,
and it's actually treated me well.
But I have to admit that my first couple
of years it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.
And I've got some good months,
and I got some bad months.
But I do know one thing for certain.
The most of self publishing can come free,
but you're only gonna get out what you put into it.
So that's why I thought I'd discuss
some of the investments that you can expect
when it comes to self publishing your books through Amazon.
So the short answer is going to be this,
it's going to cost nothing to possibly
tens of thousands of dollars.
Now don't click away.
Stay with me.
I'm not saying you have to spend
tens of thousands of dollars,
but I do know of some people who have spent
that much money so I'm gonna hopefully
guide you a little bit more through this process
and it makes a little bit more sense.
Is there a right answer?
Not by any stretch 'cause you're gonna hear people saying
it's going to cost a thousand dollars.
Some people are gonna say it's completely free.
Some people are gonna say it's gonna cost $20,000,
and that doesn't even include the marketing budget
as soon as you launch your book.
There are some key items that you're gonna wanna consider
when you get into self publishing books
through Amazon and any other platform.
And I'm gonna go ahead and discuss those one at a time.
And for the sake of brevity,
I'm just gonna go ahead
and we're gonna take ghost writing
and we're gonna put that off to the side.
I'm just assuming that the people
I'm talking to here right now are writing their own content.
So just keep in mind that if you plan
on outsourcing your writing
or hiring ghost writers for your publishing business
that is an extra expense on top
of the things I'm already gonna discuss.
Editing and Proofreading.
Now there are various levels of editing
that you need to be aware of.
If you were just to write your book
and put it out onto the market,
then chances are pretty likely
it's gonna be riddled with errors.
I know you're proud of your work.
Maybe you even had your mom
or your cousin go through and edit the whole thing
and get it proofed.
But the fact of the matter is
if you want it done correctly you're gonna need
to hire a professional editor.
So this is going to come at a cost,
unless you find somebody that is willing
to do some type of a quid pro quo.
But that's neither here nor there.
Developmental Editing.
Otherwise known as content editing.
This kind of looks at the big picture of your work.
And this is going to be the more costly of all of them.
And it's gonna be a little bit more labor intensive
because they're going to be going in
and picking your work apart,
handing it back to you
so that way you can refine exactly what you're doing
with your work.
Generally speaking, runs about five to 10 cents per word.
But there are some editors out there
that won't even focus on the words
so much as the project.
Basic Copyediting.
Now this is when you get down onto the microscopic level.
This is micro editing if you will.
This is where it starts to get into
that nit picky element of things.
But it's going to really make for a great
and pleasant reading experience
for your customers.
Basic copy editing can run about two to five cents per word.
Again, some editors will pay for the project
and not per word.
I just wanna gave you some general ideas
of what you're shooting for.
Proofreading.
Now here's where we just put that
little bit of extra shine,
little bit more luster onto your work.
Proof reading's gonna be after all the edits.
You've done a bit of the formatting,
and we're going in and making sure
it's all showroom ready.
This can run about one to two cents per word.
However, you may find that if you build a really good
advanced ready copy team
they may be able to help you out
in the proof reading process.
Again though it's all gonna come down to
how professional you want your manuscript to come off.
Hiring out a professional editor
and a proof reader will help you out
in the long term.
So exactly where do you find a good editor
or proofreader, this is going to vary.
And especially when it comes to
the actual pricing and the cost for you overall.
I always recommend look for referrals.
Try to get active inside the indie author community
and start to get to know other authors.
Read their work.
See if it's good and polished,
especially if it's in your niche.
Then you're gonna wanna see if you can reach out to them
and have them recommend their editors
or their proofreaders.
Chances are pretty likely you might find somebody
that would work really well with you.
I find that most instances,
some people think that all editors are exactly the same.
There are some editors that are very niche specific.
In fact, actually my good friend, James Ranson,
he only handles nonfiction books for business professionals
so you're not gonna see him editing
a robo shape shifter romance any time soon.
And so the same thing could probably be said
for those fiction editors.
They're probably not gonna be handling nonfiction.
So you gotta make sure you get good
with who you're hiring,
and hire who is appropriate for the job.
So the total cost of editing and proofreading
a 10,000 word manuscript,
now keep in mind that's a short story at best,
that's going to run about $800 to $1200.
That's a minimum.
It could possibly cost way more,
depending on the experience of that editor
and how long this project's going to take,
and of course how much work your manuscript needs.
Interior Formatting.
When going into formatting,
you need to consider there's two avenues.
You've got E-books and you've got print books.
Now there are some times where you can get your print book
all formatted really nicely
and just have it converted over into E-book.
But in some instances you may just want to go
for something that's going to be enhanced type setting
that's really good for the readers through say
Kindle reading devices,
and that means that some
of that formatting that you would normally have for print
may not translate too well over into E-book form.
Now interior formatting can cost quite a bit.
You can try to just grind it out
and do it all yourself,
but is that gonna be something
that you're mother's gonna pin on her fridge
and be proud of?
Probably not.
So I would recommend definiteyl hiring out
somebody that is experienced in interior formatting.
This can cost as little as say $10,
now that's bargain basement,
that is some people that are just
trying to get their reps in, maybe over on Fiver
or on some type of freelance platform,
and this can cost upwards of $1500 or even more.
This depends largely on your vision
of your formatting.
So as a for instance, Adam Wilber,
a former guest here of the show,
he spent a pretty good penny on an interior formatter,
and this guy pulled out all the stops.
It's a beautiful interior,
highly recommend you take a look at that book
when you get the opportunity.
It's called Creativity: The Magic Formula.
Cover Design.
Okay so there is three products
that you need to take into consideration,
E-books, print books and audiobooks.
I used to give the recommendations
that you could just take your E-book
and then just stretch it out
over onto your ACX or your audiobook cover.
Eh, that doesn't translate very well for good sales.
So I always recommend that you get covers
that are appropriate to the specific type of publication.
And the same thing can kind
of be said when it comes to print books.
Normally I would say just take the E-book
and you just put it on the front cover.
And in some instances that will work.
But if you're distributing onto platforms
like Barnes and Nobel Press it won't work
because there are certain guidelines
and bleed areas that you have to honor
in order to actually publish through them.
E-book covers can range about $7 to $500.
Print book covers range about $17 to $500
or even way more.
And audio book covers can run about $7 to $500.
My best advice would be to hire a cover design artist
that's going to do all of them.
You don't want to be trying to piecemeal all
of these services together because
a lot of your creative vision
for what your cover is gonna look like
can really get watered down
if you're using numerous sources.
My preferred avenue that I've used before
is Urban Writers.
A former guest of this channel, Marco Moutinho,
actually runs a service called Urban Writers.
And they actually put together really good covers.
And I was real happy with their services.
In fact, if you are interested, make sure that you visit
my affiliate link at dalelinks.com/urban
and use the coupon code DALEPUB
to get five percent off your order.
Audiobook Narrator.
Yes, again, I'm gonna go back to the well
when it comes to taking into consideration
E-books and print books,
but remember your audio books
as you get ready to launch your book.
You don't want to just says nah I'm good without it,
or I'll just try to bootstrap my way there.
Try to get all that stuff together
and hiring a good professional audiobook narrator
is gonna make all the difference in your book launch.
But as I've mentioned in previous videos,
when it comes to hiring a good audiobook narrator,
you can go through say audiobook creation exchange
to where there's two different types of deals.
There is the royalty share.
Now there are pros and cons.
And generally speaking, I tell people only use that option
if you have to.
In fact, I'm gonna leave a link
down inside the description below that's going to tell you
is royalty share worth it or not.
You're gonna hear my candid thoughts
when it comes to royalty share
and some of my experiences that were less than good.
The other option's gonna be pay per finished hour.
And as I shared in that other video,
that is pretty much however long your book is,
is how much you're going to pay them per hour.
So if your book is say an hour long,
and they charge $150 per finished hour,
it's gonna cost you $150.
A good audiobook narrator is going to cost
anywhere from $50 to as much as $1200
per finished hour.
And I know some of you fiction writers out there
that are putting epic length novels
are going I don't know about that Dale.
Again, I said there are some exceptions
to the rule when it comes to the royalty share.
And that might be something worth considering.
But I would recommend that you at least try
to get together the funds
and hire a good professional audiobook narrator,
or narrate it yourself if you have the know how to do it.
So if we were to look at the maximum cost
and being that some of the recommendations that I gave
based on some of the services,
it's going to run you somewhere in the neighborhood
of about $5000 per publication.
Now this doesn't mean that you have to spend that much.
Again, you can find some of the cheaper alternatives.
Or if you're networking with other business professionals
that have that as a skill,
there's good chance that you can probably
do a good exchange.
But what if you want to do it yourself?
Lets say that you just don't have $5000 laying around.
That you don't even have $50 much less $5
or a nickel to rub together.
I recommend that you
take a look at the DIY publishing course.
This is exactly made for you,
the person that doesn't really
have too much discretionary expense,
but wants to also learn every facet of the business
and try to manage it themselves.
If you wanna take a look at that,
make sure that you visit the link inside this video here,
as well as visiting DIYpublishing.biz.
In the meantime, the between time I will see you there.