What does it really cost to self-publish?

Over the weekend, when both Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com discounted my book, The Crown in the Heather, from the list price of $13.99 t0 $10.07 (a whopping 28% off), a couple of people asked if that meant I'd be earning less per book. In short, the answer is 'no'. I still earn the same amount whether they list it at full price, 10% off or 50% off.

The list price I set for CITH is $13.99. The discount I set for wholesalers (such as Amazon.com) is 20% of that, which means that they buy it for 80% of the full price, which is $11.92. So, yes indeed, at 28% off they are selling it at a loss. The only explanation I can give is that since they've just given you such an ubelievable bargain, they expect you'll buy something else while you're shopping online. It must work, or else they wouldn't do it so often.

How much of that $11.92 do I get per book? Well, quite a bit more than I'd get from the royalties per book if I were contracted with a mainstream publisher; however, keep in mind that without the bookstore exposure and marketing boost that a traditional publisher provides, my sales volume won't be nearly as great. First, I have to pay Lightning Source to print the book. That amounts to 1.3 cents per page plus 90 cents per book. (298 pages X .013) + .90 = $4.77 to Lightning Source.

Using my 8th grade algebra, here's the math for what I earn per book:

($13.99 X .80) - $4.77 = $7.15 per book.

BUT . . . there are initial start-up costs and other fees that have to be factored in, too. Fees to Lightning Source, the cost of ISBNs, cover design, interior layout and editing . . .

If I haven't yet mentioned it, author K.L. Brady's blog, Indie Publishing on the Cheap, has some excellent tips on how to wisely pinch pennies when self-publishing.

Now on to accounting for the nickles and dimes . . . Here's a quick run down of my basic costs:

• $25 - 1 ISBN (I bought a block of 10 for $250)
• $75 - Set-up fee per title for Lightning Source
• $30 - Proof copy from Lightning Source
• $12 - Annual catalog fee to Lightning Source
• #$119 - 20 copies from Lightning Source (to be used as review copies and gifts)
• #$160 - Cover design and pdf file of cover (based on my basic design and using a photo I provided) (I also purchased a logo design for $60, which I'll be able to use on successive books.)
• $20 - approximate cost for a single photo from http://www.istockphoto.com/ (this will vary, depending on how many photos you buy at once, the specific photo and the size [resolution] of the photo purchased) (I actually bought a supply of credits and purchased additional photos which I can use on my web site, for a book trailer if I do one, and for other books.)

Total start-up costs:

$25 + $75 + $30 + $12 + $119 + $160 + $20 = $441

Divide that total ($441) by the amount earned per book ($7.15) and I need to sell approximately 62 copies to earn my start-up costs back for this book. Not bad and definitely doable.

I could have spent a great deal more on professional cover design or artwork - in fact, I would have loved to - but since my other income is, well, nil, this is one area I had to be economical in. And judging by the comments on the cover, I think it serves its purpose well. Professional editing is another area I would love to splurge in, but done right it is not a cheap job, either; so instead, ten very intelligent writers, whose opinions and abilities I trust, read the whole book at various stages and gave feedback, as well as corrected my technical errors. Yes, this means I read ten manuscripts in return and got great mileage out of my copy of The Chicago Manual of Style.

This is just my experience and how I chose to go about doing it. Publishing through Kindle or CreateSpace will lower your costs, while going through a subsidy publisher or employing professionals for specific jobs (editing, cover design, publicity) will raise it accordingly.

Until later,

Gemi

Amazon.com and beyond . . .

This will be a short, to-the-point post, as it's been a long week of graduations, track meets, band concerts, grad parties, house cleaning, mowing in the rain and publication . . . What? Really??? Oh yes, somehow I managed not only to layout the interior of my first book, help design and decide on a cover and submit everything to Lightning Source, but it showed up in a few prominent places the very week I had a gazillion things to do. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com for awhile before I even found out. Wherever Lightning Source's or Amazon's web sites said it would take 7-10 days for information to show up, in reality it only took about three.

I've added the Search Inside the Book feature to Amazon's U.S. site and the same should be up on the U.K. site within the week. There is a box of review copies here waiting to be shipped off to remote parts of the world when I get a moment to breathe.

I'll have much, much more to say about the process of self-publishing in the next couple of weeks, but for now, here are some places where you can find The Crown in the Heather, The Bruce Trilogy: Book I:

1). Amazon.com

2) Amazon.co.uk

3) Barnes and Noble

BTW, Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com seem to be having a price war. They've dropped the cover price from the list of $13.99 to $10.07 (28% off). Since I've set the discount through Lightning Source at 20%, this means they're actually selling it below what it costs them to buy it. I'm not sure how long that price will last, but it sure is nice of them - the author still gets paid the same no matter what and the buyers get to keep a few bucks to themselves. It's a win-win situation.

Many thanks to Daphne over at Tanzanite's Shelf and Stuff for mentioning CITH on her Weekly Wishlist for June 4th, 2010. If you like historical fiction and haven't yet visited her blog, do! I don't know how much time she spends keeping track of new releases, but it's a treasure chest for HF lovers.

All for now. After tonight I'm going to collapse into an exhausted heap and recooperate with a heavy dose of reality TV. I was temporarily depressed when American Idol, The Amazing Race and Survivor all came to an end. Thank heavens, my summer leisure time has been saved by the appearance of So You Think You Can Dance, America's Got Talent and the Bachelorette!

Until later,
Gemi

Self-publishing through Lightning Source

Yesterday, as I walked down my very long driveway preparing for a run, I found a strange package by my front gate. I didn't remember ordering any books from Amazon.com recently, but it was the right size and shape. I picked it up and, yes, that was my name on the label. Then I saw that it was from Lightning Source. In one of those surreal moments, I plied open the cardboard wrapping. Inside was the proof of my very first printed copy of The Crown in the Heather, The Bruce Trilogy: Book I. So I eased it out and . . . oh my gosh, it was pretty in that new-car sort of way. The pages were crisp, the layout neat and consistent and the cover looked way better in real life than it did on my computer screen (thanks a million to my cover artist, Lance Ganey!). It not only looked like a real book fresh off the shelves, it was a real book.

I had uploaded the interior and cover files just before last weekend. With real life being crazy-busy (having a graduating senior tends to dominate your time), I had put it out of my mind and only checked my book's status on LSI's web site once in the interim. Honestly, I hadn't expected it so soon.

I can't even begin to tell you how many unexpected little glitches I've hit along the way in the process of getting my book to this stage. It has been a learning process and taken months (primarily because I'm very cautious and a perfectionist, not because any of it is that difficult). Having gone through the steps now with The Crown in the Heather, I know that my next book, Isabeau, will take me only a fraction of the time to format, as I'm sure will be the case with the cover and uploading to Lightning Source.

Now it's time to order some review copies and start beating the drum. Marketing is neither familiar nor comfortable territory to an introvert, but just like the rest of the process, you learn what you need to and in time it becomes second nature.

When I started on this journey of self-publishing, I studied my options. I knew I wanted to put out a paper book first, because that's still the format most readers prefer, myself included. Subsidy publishers seemed to take too much of the profit. CreateSpace was a possibility, but distribution was limited - plus, if I ever wanted to do a short print run to sell my books locally or at Celtic festivals, then financially that wasn't the best choice. Ultimately, books by Michael N. Marcus (Become a Real Self-Publisher) and Aaron Shepard (Aiming at Amazon, Perfect Pages and most recently POD for Profit) convinced me that using Lightning Source for online POD sales was the way to go - not only because it provided the best profit margin for print-on-demand, but also because it gives the widest routes of distribution.

Don't let it scare you that on Lightning Source's web site in places it may sound like if you're a self-publishing author, then you ought to slink away. They are a professionally run business that works regularly with small presses. Do your homework beforehand and the process will go more smoothly and seem less mysterious. I had a couple of questions that I was afraid would sound like dumb newbie questions, but at every step LSI's reps were both polite and prompt in answering me. Between Shepard's and Marcus's books, LSI's manuals, the POD and Self-Publishing discussion lists on Yahoo!, and the guidance of my friend and self-published author Ali Cooper, I managed just fine. You can, too.

That book that I started writing almost a decade ago and rewrote several times, that a reputable agent diligently championed, and that garnered interest from editors but never quite cleared the final hurdle, it's a real book now.

Do you know what the coolest part is? My son sat down and read a chunk of it yesterday. Yes, I'm an author now. And I have proof.

[A two-time Amazon Breakthrough Novel Quarterfinalist, The Crown in the Heather is the first in a trilogy about 14th century Scottish king, Robert the Bruce. It covers the years before he was king and up until the year he was crowned, from 1290 to 1306. It will be available from Amazon.com and other online retailers beginning in June of 2010.]

Until later,

Gemi

The Mountain (a.k.a. Self-Publishing) is High

Today was supposed to be my publication date for The Crown in the Heather (The Bruce Trilogy: Book I), but, but . . .

No, no, put away the tiny violins. All's fine. I suppose it's like learning anything new, you can't foresee all that may possibly slow you down. Even if you do know the steps to take, 'stuff' just happens. At the moment, I'm waiting for my significant other to bring home my flash drive so I can correct a spacing/section break problem in my Word Document, which he is attempting to convert to a pdf at work for me. He can't e-mail it to me so I can correct it in 30 seconds because - even though we now have satellite internet, Glory Halelujah! - this computer doesn't run Word 2007, which the-document-that-will-become-my-book is in.

Before that, a sinus infection knocked me on my back for almost two weeks. I'm not one to sack out on the couch at noon, but that's pretty much what I did for over a week while Thor hammered at my cheekbones and icicles of pain stabbed at my eyeballs. Ten days of horsepills and I'm back to normal, relatively speaking. And before that, I had to re-format my book from a 5.25" X 8" to a 6" X 9" size due to one ancient computer and one newer one not speaking the same language - bad computers. Fortunately that turned out for the better, as it gave me more room to play with in the margins, although it did bump my schedule back a few days.

Anywho, I've faxed my final forms to Lightning Source, the POD printer; my full cover and imprint logo have been completed by the fabulous graphic artist Lance Ganey; and, as soon as I get the wrinkles ironed out of this pdf file for the actual book interior, publication will be imminent. Or at least that's the plan.

All these little glitches have made me realize that one thing that probably keeps many writers from independently publishing is that there are soooo many steps to the entire process, especially if you're an OCD control freak like me and you insist on doing 90% of it yourself. But don't let me scare you aware, because it really is fun. Seriously. Yes, the learning curve can be steep, but you do gain knowledge that you can share with others. I can't even begin to express my gratitude toward some of my fellow authors (Ali Cooper, Pd Allen and Lisa Hinsley) who've answered questions about the minutia of the process for me.

Despite all the work and decision-making that go into creating your own book - from the first blank page to the finished product - it is an absolute thrill to know that all the choices were yours, even when others helped to edit or design it. As I step past the occasional roadblock that presents itself and move toward my publication date, a little bubble of excitement wells up inside my chest. And when I can't stand waiting a second longer, I just go look at my pretty cover and think of how fantastic it will look on Amazon.com next month.

So if you're thinking of going this route yourself, but have no clue how or where to start, read and listen for awhile, ask questions and then just start somewhere. You'll get there eventually.

Until later,

Gemi