How Much is that (Self-Published) Book in the Window?

Welcome Guest-Blogger Jamie DeBree!

I forget where I met Jamie first. I follow her blog (fabulous!) and I follow her on Twitter (funny!), but it's possible I met her on FaceBook. Wherever we met, she impressed me as a hard-working, creative individual. She's encouraging, insightful, and full of surprises. I asked her here today to share the hard numbers behind self-publishing.

Numbers seem to be the dirty secret in publishing. Blogs and reviews are happy to tell you that a book is for sale, but it's hard to find an author who is willing to talk numbers sold and profit made. Thank you, Jamie, for being brave enough to share.

First, thanks to Liana for having me here on her blog today, and for throwing down the challenge to take a hard look at the actual finances involved in self-publishing a book.

This post was the motivation I needed to create some spreadsheets and collect my financial information in one place with regards to Tempest, and when all is said and done, I'm more optimistic than I was before for my first little novella.

You have to understand – I'm a realist at heart, so my expectations for sales with Tempest were very low considering it's my first book, and I'm relatively unknown as far as readers go. And I'm certainly not selling a huge amount of books by any means – sales are slow thus far. But I understood when I started this that sales probably wouldn't pick up until after I'd released several books, so I'm content for the moment.

I'll share first what I spent on both the print and electronic versions of Tempest. I'm not counting web site costs, blog costs, or anything "general" to being a writer. Just the cost of publishing this one book.

Cover art: $100
Expanded distribution through CreateSpace: $40.00
Two proof copies of the print version with expedited shipping: $60

Total cost: $200

I didn't spend anything on editing, and that's because I have a friend with editorial experience who edited Tempest for me (I offered to pay, and she declined). Here's where social networking can really reap professional rewards – I met both my editor and my cover artist through blogs and twitter respectively, and they were both friends before I even knew I'd be self-publishing. If you decide to self-publish, check with your friends – they may have skills you don't know about that you could tap into for either money or bartered services.

If you can design a professional-looking cover yourself, you can save that cost. I had no inclination or time to do it myself, so I was (and am) happy to pay for professional work. The expanded distribution option simply makes my print book available in the catalogs that bookstores order through – so theoretically, if someone walked into their local bookstore and wanted to order Tempest, they could. The expanded distribution also made it so I could lower the cost of my print copy – without it, I would have had to charge around $9.99 per copy. This allowed me to price it at $6.99, which I feel is more reasonable.

My proof copies were all of $2.97 each (which is my cost on my print copies). The rest was all shipping because I didn't give myself enough time between revisions and release day. So a mistake on my part cost money...it would have been much cheaper had I not been in a rush.

You'll note most of the cost was for my print version. Unless you hire someone to format your ebooks, other than the cover art there really is no cost to upload an ebook to Amazon or Smashwords (the two sites I used). If you can do your own formatting and cover art, it really is free to publish your ebook most places online. No hidden fees.

Now for what I've made. I released Tempest on August 16th, so it's been out for about eight weeks now.

Ebooks sold: 21
Gross profit: $17.47

Print books sold: 12
Gross profit: $39.84

Total gross profits to date: $57.81

You may want to note that I've done very little overt marketing, mainly because I've been busy this fall, and focused on getting my next book revised so I can send it out for editing. I'm confident that Tempest will sell enough copies to cover the costs of publishing and I'll eventually make a net profit on it – it just takes time. Self-publishing isn't a "get-rich-quick" scheme, it's simply another option for getting our work out there. While I probably could approach local bookstores and consignment stores about carrying my print books, I really only did a print copy for people I knew who prefer print to ebooks. My focus is on ebooks, and that's where I'll be focusing my marketing efforts over the long run.

So there you have it – my first foray into self-publishing in dollars and cents. I realize most people probably look at these numbers and are discouraged, but to me they represent the start of a small business that I hope will grow into something strong and profitable. Time will tell.

For more information on my self-publishing adventures, please visit Beyond the Words, my publishing & marketing blog at http://bookbiz.jamiedebree.com. More information on Tempest and my current projects is available at http://jamiedebree.com.

Have a question? Leave a note for Jamie in the comments box and later this week we'll have the answers posted.

Thank you, Jamie, for coming out to give us some hard numbers on self-publishing. If anyone else has some publishing numbers they'd like to share (self-pubbed, large press, small press, with or without an agent) I'd love to have a guest post from you as well. Just hit the e-mail button on my profile and send me a message!