Costing a self published book

Did printing cost include the artwork for the cover and buying the ISBN?

Have you worked out the time it has taken to get to this stage? I think it would be good to try and work out how many hours your project has taken and compare it against something like the minimum average wage per hour. Then try to work out how many books you would need to sell to sustain a minimum average wage whilst working on the project.

Hope that makes sense and I would be curious. I think people give costs out without considering the expediture in time without having a regular income coming in.

JJ

When the question was submitted 'when would you break even', it had me thinking of all of the unpaid hours labouring over your work with research, writing, editing, building up a reader base with marketting etc. So I just figured going on total outputs in costs and measuring against total sales wouldn't be all that representative with the lost time in potential wages elsewhere type of scenario.

It seems the norm in commercial publishing is a book a year. We'll round that up to a nice figure of 1000 hours. And the minimum wage at a guess is $10.00 an hour. So we've invested $10,000.00 in time to get to publication without the associated costs as described above. I'm thinking you would need to sell at least 500 more books to break even. Not trying to sound like a smart-ass, but does that sound reasonable?

JJ

I can see a lot of work went into this book. I wouldn't worry about breaking even. It's a long-term investment on this type of book. Sales should be modest, but steady, over a number of years.

You can always re-issue it in updated editions, as well.

When you get right down to it, how many writers with contracts make a real living from writing alone? Like rock stars, sports stars, race car drivers, beach volleyball players, and astronauts, the number of high-end writers who own yachts and jets is much, much, much lower than the number who ply their trade evenings and weekends after their "real" jobs. Does that sound right?

As one who's had a contract and is now doing it all himself, I much prefer being able to handle the details on my own. A lot of the details are the same, contract or no. I still had to do my own press releases, book signing schedule, even getting the book into the stores in almost every case. I had no advance, no real support. The only thing my contract did was force me to parcel money to other people who didn't do much more than provide an ISBN and schedule print-on-demand copies when necessary.

I had two offers to go with independent publishers after I decided to make THRIPZ available again. Neither indie offered an advance, and both demanded to know what I was going to do to promote and market myself. Not that I have anything against that. I'm going to do it. But my way, there are at least two fewer hands out to take away part the proceeds. The agent's and the publisher's.

As for paying for the time it takes to write the book, let me ask this: has anyone here ever gone to school to learn something? You didn't get paid for that, did you? Of course, you did have to pay for it afterwards, which is not really the case for a writer who is merely spending free time writing. Yeah, you can say you are worth this much or that much when you're working, but when you're not working, you're not working. Your time is then worth nothing. It's just your time. You use it to perfect yourself.

Musicians are another example. I am one, too, and I practiced almost nonstop every second I could from the time I was eight years old. I got into bands that played bars and fairs. We made some tapes and sold them, nothing fancy. But we surely didn't make back money for the time we spent learning our instruments, or even for the time we spent practicing. Indie. (Well, drunk mostly.)

That said, I'm not giving up on latching onto an agent with connections to get me an unholy amount of an advance so that my future worry lines will be from earning back tens of thousands of dollars on my story books. But I'm certainly not going to say I need such and such an amount of advance for the many hours it has taken me to write my book. Not unless I want to be sure of having to do it all myself again.

A big tip of the hat to you, Helena, for taking control of the reins.

Robert<><>

I'd just like to add that if you are writing/publishing to make any kind of living you are in business. Right now, most small and micro business owners I know put in tons of time beyond their "normal business hours" to make their incomes.

If they too were to calculate it out, many would likely earn no more than they would working for someone else, maybe even less. The thing is, the payoff for them could be being their own boss, having flex time to be with kids etc. It's no different in the book biz.

For most people, you figure out what you have to do to make the amount of money you need to pay bills/break even first, then profit. In a best case scenario, the per hour looks good too, but it may not always. As long as you don't lose money and you keep sight of what you want out of the whole deal, I think you're doing okay.

hastingspress said:

I found Robert's and Cheryl's replies most interesting.

I'd just like to add that, because a self publisher keeps all the profits, and the writer with a publishing contract only get 10%, one is more likely to be able to make a living from self publishing than being published by someone else.

Helena

Click to expand...

My highlight. I disagree.

But this thread isn't about that and I appreciate you taking the time to let others know of your experiences.

JJ

Fair enough. I don't think I would have been able to match the marketing or distribution of my publisher though.

JJ