Does Self-Publishing Cost A Lot?

By Christina M. Schumacher

Self-publishing doesn't have to cost a lot - it's totally up to you what you choose to spend. Be prepared, though, to spend a lot of time marketing your book if you pay a lot to publish. Otherwise, you'll never make back the cost of publishing.

I spent nearly $3,000 to publish my first book, "Do We Know When Our Time Is Near?" and only about $600 each for my second and third books - "There's No Place Like Home - Nine Forms of After Death Communication" and "Soul to Soul Connection." My fourth book, co-authored with Psychic Photographer, Ron Bowers, from England, will run a little over $600 even with over 70 photos. This is quite a difference from the $3,000 the first time around.

Like many first timers, I thought that the more I spent for the extras (specifically the marketing extras), the more successful my book would be. It'll take a long time to make that money back. In fact, I've sold just as many, if not more, of my second and third book as I have the first even without the marketing packages! That's by marketing quite lazily too in comparison to a lot of authors out there.

My thoughts, from my experience, is that all you need to publish is the basic package and Ingram.

Ingram is a large company that distributes monthly book lists to book stores. This I paid for and am glad I did. The bookstores use this list to determine what books they want to have on their shelves. Of course, a new self-published author will rarely, if ever, be chosen over a well known author, but you still have a shot. My books, though it took almost three years, are in many bookstores now and that is where most of my sales now come from.

Purchasing business cards, postcards and bookmarks is pretty much, at least to me, a waste of money. You can have these made anywhere or do it yourself, if you think you need them, for a lot less money.

I also purchased a media package for the first book which meant the publisher wrote a press release and sent it out to 500 newspaper and radio stations. Sounds great, right? I received one radio interview from a local station for the extra $400 I paid for this service. I could have done this myself by emailing my press release to the local stations and paper, paying only with my time and what I pay for my internet connection!

Each company offers different extras for marketing purposes. I have not tried all of them obviously, but my way of looking at it is that if they can do it, so can I. For a lot less money.

Copyright is another cost that you could avoid if you chose, but most authors find it easier just to have the company do it for them. When I published the third book, copyright cost through the company was $75.00. That was over a year ago, so this may no longer be the correct amount. At the time, had I done it myself, the fee would have been about $40 with the Copyright Office.

The bottom line is, don't spend more than you have to. Really take a look at what the extras are, beyond the basic package and Ingram, and determine if they will really benefit you in the long run. Truly, if they offer a one time benefit lasting only a short period of time, figure out a way to do the same thing yourself.