How much does it cost to self-publish a book? Can you publish a book yourself, or do you need to hire help? How much work is involved in self-publishing?

If you're planning ahead to get an idea of whether you can do this, you're my kinda person! But it’s a pain in the ass to get a straight answer because there are seven bajillion self-publishing options, all with different price tags.

We can, however, break this down into three broad price categories, so you can make smart, informed decisions about how to self-publish your book without breaking the bank.

Imagine you have a full, finished manuscript—as in, a Word document, Google Drive doc, Scrivener file, or something similar. You’ve written The End, edited until your eyes bleed, and now you want to turn this document into an actual ebook, paperback, or hardcover book. Now what?


The Essential Elements You Need to Self-Publish

The essential elements you need to transform this file into a legit, hold-it-in-your-hands (on your Kindle) book are:

The costs of self-publishing a book include getting a cover designed.

  • A version of the file in the right format for Amazon, Ingram Spark, or whichever self-publishing platform you’re using. This is most commonly called an interior layout file.

  • A cover. The required format will depend on whether you’re publishing as an ebook, paperback, hardback, the number of pages, and other details.

  • An online account with Amazon, or whoever you’ll be publishing with.

  • A back cover blurb and your choice of categories for the book to be listed in (for example, memoir, self-help, business, true crime).

For more details on these elements and what to do with them, I highly recommend Joanna Penn’s book, Successful Self-Publishing. It’s available as a free ebook, but I also bought a physical copy because it’s such a useful reference guide.

But let’s stick to the money question. How much does it cost to produce these elements and get the job done? Here are three broad price options.

Self-publishing option 1: Free

Do the publishing work entirely yourself.

You can create the interior layout file, design the cover, set up your online accounts with publishers, write your back cover blurb, choose your publishing categories, and hit Publish yourself.

You are capable of this.

There is a learning curve, and it will require research and a willingness to dive into this new world, but you absolutely can do it. It’s new and not totally intuitive, but it sure ain’t rocket science.

This option is free, although you can pay $10 to $250 for upgraded software to assist you in formatting your file and designing your cover.

As with many things in life, you get what you pay for. If you have no experience designing book covers and you choose this route, you’ll end up working with an inexperienced cover designer (you!). People do judge a book by its cover, so if you can afford to hire help, I recommend doing so.

But we all have to work with what we've got, and if you don’t have the budget, you can do it yourself.


Self-publishing option 2: Up to about $300 per element

Project manage the publishing process yourself but hire help for the elements involved.

From the list of elements listed above, you can decide to hire help for one or all of them. With this option, you get to pick and choose where you’ll spend your cash and where you’ll save by spending time instead.

This article, also from Joanna Penn, has a good overview of the costs involved. They range from $50 to $300 USD per element. 

Again, you’ll pay more for experienced help—hence the range of prices. This gives you choices within the choice to hire out!


Self-publishing option 3: $5,000 to $20,000+

Hire a full-service company to execute the elements and manage the project for you. 

This option requires the least time and most money from you.

It can range from $5,000 for basic services to $20,000 USD or more for all the bells and whistles, including marketing, but you get to hand over the project and let someone else do the work.

These service providers might call themselves a self-publishing company, a hybrid publisher, a book marketer, or, frankly, anything else! There are no set industry terms for this type of help, which is kinda confusing.

Just make sure you understand and are happy with what you’re paying for.

For full-service assistance, I can recommend:

You get to choose how much to spend self-publishing your book

It can be difficult to determine how much publishing assistance you’ll want, and therefore the costs involved. The good news is that you have plenty of options to do this in a way that works for your budget, time, and interest.

You get to choose how much you’ll spend self-publishing your book. Instead of being overwhelmed by the seven bajillion options available within each of these categories, I want you to feel empowered.

You can do this within your budget. You get to choose how much to spend. You can find a way that works for you.

Now, go forth and finish that book, so you can actually use this info!

Thanks,

Liz "All the Options" Green
Editor, Book Coach, and Ghostwriter
Green Goose Writing

 
 

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