Stephanie Caye – On Cost of Self-Publishing

Hello, friend! Have you ever wondered how much it can cost to self-publish a book? That question is going to be answered today! Welcome to a new post in The Creator’s Roulette! There have been many posts in this series about indie publishing and today’s post by author Stephanie Caye shares about things I was curious about but hadn’t gotten around to looking into. Before we dive into this post, let’s get to know Stephanie:

Stephanie Caye grew up in Michigan wanting to be a famed, reclusive novelist. Then she moved to Texas, got a job in tech, started volunteering with shelter cats and dropped both “famed” and “reclusive” from her childhood dream. She now lives in Montreal, still working in tech, still volunteering with cats, and still writing. A former recipient of the University of Michigan Hopwood award, she self-published her first novel, The Flaws of Gravity, in April of 2022.

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On the (actual) cost of self-publishing

A guest post by Stephanie Caye

Hello, I self-published a book and I am going to share what it cost me! I’d have loved for someone to have shared this information with me during the process so that I could have compared and made better-informed decisions. Thus I’m going to go ahead and do so, even if it’s awkward. Demurring about money is a big part of my US Midwestern culture. We do not talk about it, and we are all doing fine, thanks—no complaints.

I have to note that I’m incredibly privileged to have had the time and money to do this at all. Privilege and luck have contributed widely to my ability to do the things I’ve wanted in my life, so I want to share what I can.

Why I self-published (tl;dr):

• Many years of querying various books to traditional agents/publishers with moderate interest (lots of “the story’s good but I don’t think I can sell it” and lots more crickets)
• Getting further burned out by querying this particular book before it was really ready
• Insistence from the Internet that urban fantasy/genre fiction does better in Indie than Trad publishing
• Personal desire for control and learning the process—I love to get my hands into things and learn how they work (please take that in a less ‘serial-killer’ way than it sounds.)

So, I read self-pub blogs, I joined Facebook groups, I researched, researched, researched—all while querying and secretly holding out hope that traditional publishing would pick me up and whisk me away. Then I got tired of waiting for somebody else to make things happen so I dove in on my own, and did my best.

I published a print copy and an ebook of The Flaws of Gravity using Amazon and IngramSpark.

What it cost:

Note: I’m a dual citizen with bank accounts in both the US and Canada, so in order to avoid currency conversion fees, I paid CAD invoices in CAD and USD invoices in USD. The total at the end is given in both currencies.

$1073.50 CAD – Developmental edit

 ($950.00 flat manuscript fee + $123.50 tax)

This is probably the most expensive thing I’ve paid for in relation to my writing, but it was hands-down the most worthwhile. Writing workshops and beta readers are awesome and so, so helpful, but ultimately they are not going to replace a professional editor who knows how to organize stories and how to give critiques. Developmental edits take a hard look at things like structure, plot, and character consistency.

(Not calculated: the emotional cost of having someone tap all of the little plot-holes you hastily plastered over, and tug all the loose threads you hoped no one would ever notice. Oh, they notice.)

To find such an editor, I did a lot of Googling and ultimately ended up searching the Editorial Freelancers Association (https://www.the-efa.org). There, I found and reached out to Julie Kay-Wallace (https://jkwedits.com). She did a sample edit for me, I liked it, and we were in business.

Editing rates can vary by editor, page count, and/or book type, but this seemed pretty standard for a novel-length book.

$737.33 CAD – Follow-up developmental edit plus copy edit

($652.50 for 88,000 words + $84.83 tax) 

I asked Julie to do this second pass several months later and found it very helpful to know if I’d fixed the problems from her initial critique. No matter whether you get a developmental edit or not, you definitely want to get a professional copy-edit before self-publishing. This makes sure your manuscript doesn’t have grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, which will turn a reader off really quickly.

$150 USD – Book Formatting

I read that it was easy enough to format your own manuscript rather than hire someone to do it for you. I played with a few trial-version softwares and eventually chose Atticus because it had a one-time fee and good reviews. (I can now attest to their very fast and helpful support, too!)

Due to a bug that got introduced while I was re-formatting (after I realized I’d used the wrong font-size and had to redo everything), I ended up doing my second/final formatting pass manually in PDF. This was Not Fun and now I understand why book designers charge the prices they do.

$400 USD – Cover art

(Ebook $50 + print $350)

This seemed a fairly standard price for a custom cover done with manipulated stock images. Pre-made covers are typically cheaper, if you find one that speaks to you, and a custom-painted or hand-drawn one will be a lot more expensive. This, like editing, is a place I would not skimp or DIY (unless you’re a graphic artist/cover artist.) It’s really important to have a good, eye-catching cover because despite all of our school lessons, people do judge books by their covers.

I looked at a lot of portfolios from artists who specialized in fantasy/urban fantasy book covers and eventually reached out to two whose styles I particularly liked. One was free earlier than the other, which decided it, and I’m really happy with how it went. All thanks for that to Danielle Fine (www.daniellefine.com) who, apart from making me a beautiful cover, was very patient with my newbie mistakes.

Speaking of…

$30 USD – Reformat and resize cover art

I didn’t realize at first that I’d want to do a print book from both IngramSpark and Amazon, so I had to ask Danielle to convert the cover into KDP Print format after she’d already given me the print files, which meant extra work for her. Then I screwed up my font size and had to resize the book, so had to ask Danielle to resize the cover. Again, extra work for her, extra fees for me. My bad.

$74 USD – IngramSpark

($49 base fee for uploading ebook/print book version for publication + $25 for making changes after I’d already submitted)

Other bloggers and self-publishing gurus have said this and I wish I’d better understood—do ALL of your initial proof copies and editing on Amazon. Amazon doesn’t charge for manuscript updates. Test out your files there. If you’re doing a print book, order a proof from them and make sure it looks okay (and that your font is not too small, SIGH.) Reformat and check again on Amazon, re-order a proof from them if necessary, and get it to where it’s perfect…

…THEN upload and publish on IngramSpark first (because they won’t accept it if the ISBN’s already been used elsewhere) and after that, hit publish on Amazon.

$0 – ISBN(s)

Since I’m a resident of Canada who was publishing here, I was able to get free ISBNs. This is awesome, but it’s not the norm. In the US, expect to pay $125 for one ISBN or $295 for 10. If you’re publishing an ebook through Amazon, they’ll assign you an ISBN for free, but it can’t be used with any other retailers.

$15 CAD – Proofs + shipping in Canada (Amazon.ca)

I ordered two proof copies of my print book from Amazon (one to discover the font issue and then one later to make sure it was fixed.) This is an estimate because I did not save my receipts and proof orders aren’t listed on my Amazon account for some reason.

$49 USD – Author copies + shipping to Canada (IngramSpark)

I ordered five author copies of my 315-page paperback from IngramSpark. I could also have ordered author copies from Amazon. I did not do a price comparison, because I thought the Amazon print of the cover was a little duller than IG. However, I also think the Amazon pages feel more substantial than IG, so it’s hard to decide which is better for the printed version. It’s really up to personal preference.

$65 USD – Registering US copyright

Registering your copyright isn’t required, but it’s a good idea. Your work is automatically copyrighted when you produce it but if you need to prove it in a court of law, having a registered copyright is supposed to help significantly. I tend to err on the side of caution.

$50 CAD – Registering Canadian copyright

Did I need to do this in both countries? I don’t know. Canada gave me ISBNs so it only seemed fair.

$50 CAD – Shipping for physical books (Canada Post)

Because I registered my copyright, I had to send physical books to the US Library of Congress (2 books) and Canadian Archives (1 book).

$84.37 USD – More author copies + shipping to Canada (IngramSpark)

I underestimated how many I’d of these want to have on hand. I didn’t want to end up with boxes of books but it’s good to have a few for reviewers, etc., so I ordered 10 more. Five of these (+ shipping) will go to a LibraryThing giveaway in June. One went to a potential reviewer. I’m not sure about the other four, or if I’ll need to order some more.

$119 USD – Goodreads Giveaway

I chose to do a giveaway for ebooks because shipping prices are quite steep right now. The maximum you can give away is 100 ebooks, so I went with 50 in order to seem available but not needy.

Running this giveaway for about three weeks helped my book go from being listed solely on my mother’s Goodreads list to appearing on the To-Read list of about 850 strangers. Will they actually read it? Who knows. After the giveaway finished, one person has it listed as Currently-Reading and I’ve received one new review. The other winners might read it eventually, or maybe somebody who didn’t win comes back to their To-Read and decides to give it a chance. Annoyingly pricey but ultimately I don’t regret it.

Which brings us to the total

Drum-roll please…

USD: $2458.69

(CAD: $3183.59)

And how much have I made back in six weeks of royalties?

LOL.

Eight ebooks and 15 paperbacks ordered from Amazon: $65.09 USD

Five paperbacks ordered from IngramSpark (Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org, etc.): $16.95 USD

= 

$82.04 USD profit

However…

A lot of self-published authors have a marketing strategy and ads and ARCs before they even put their book out, which is very smart. I didn’t do that. Learning both publishing and marketing at one time was too much for me. Also I am a “geriatric millennial” and we can’t use the phone sans suffering eight hours of anxiety beforehand, or talk to strangers in person without getting tongue-tied. (I’m generalizing here, with apologies to the extroverts of the Oregon Trail Generation.) I still plan to try some further marketing, which will probably add to my costs.

Was it worth it?

Yes. My book’s out there. It’s beautiful and I’m proud of it. I’m proud that I worked hard to make it the best it could be. It’s great feeling that I’ve accomplished a lifelong dream. Plus, it was a really interesting (albeit stressful) experience, and I loved learning about the process and tailoring things exactly how I wanted them. I wouldn’t say it was the optimal way to self-publish, but I took the approach I wanted based on what I knew I could personally accomplish without serious stress, and I’m happy with that.

Would I do it again?

Not sure. I guess it depends whether I can get this book into the hands of more readers and if they like it. It is a lot of money to drop on a hobby, and I don’t envision ever becoming a full-time author, as great as that would be. Let’s say, TBD.

I hope this is helpful to others who are considering self-publishing. Can you do it cheaper than I did? Probably. Can you lean harder into marketing and make more money back? Also probably. But I can’t tell you how to do that part because I haven’t learned it yet.

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If you are looking into self-publishing, did you think the cost of self-publishing would be as much as what Stephanie shared?
If you are self-published, was your cost comparable to Stephanie’s? Are there services that you have used or didn’t use?

Thank you for hanging out with us today. You can connect with Stephanie on Twitter and her website.

Cover image: Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash