Writing itself costs you nothing. You can start today and write an incredible book or ebook and assemble it, and it will cost you nothing. It will cost nothing in terms of money. You don’t need money to write anything. The budget involves the book writing process after we write it completely. When we set our book to publish, that is where we need investment. There are so many processes involved here that cost you money. We will discuss that in this web article.
Things you will learn in this blog post
This blog post will tell you how much budget you need to publish your book and do its marketing in 2022. Marketing is essential. You might write a great ebook/book, and it will not come in front of an audience for years due to a lack of proper marketing and relatable important processes. This blog post will also guide you on book publishing services so that you can choose a better way to publish your ebook or book.
As we publish our book before we do its marketing, we will discuss publishing first. After that, we’ll talk about marketing budgets, and then we’ll give you some tips on how to invest in the overall process to get the best ROI (Return On Investment).
The Budget you Need to Publish your Book
It depends on the publishing method you choose. Basically, we have three ways to publish a book. They are Traditional publishing, Self-Publishing, and Indie Publishing. Let’s introduce to you all three types.
According to an expert, indie publishing is like having your personal publishing house. You don’t opt for any big publisher or choose Amazon KDP. Instead, you go for creating your setup through which you will publish your book. We’ll not discuss this type in our post, as it requires more work than the above two options. However, you can search and learn about it online.
1. Traditional Publishing
Penguin/Random House, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster–all of these are established publishing houses. It’s almost every writer’s dream to get published by these publishers. However, now it’s not easy. It can take years of effort and still no guarantee of the result. Although it is not possible to get published through any of them, it requires smart work, effort, and patience.
Cost of Traditional Publishing
As far as publishing is concerned, you don’t have to pay a penny to any publisher when you traditionally publish your book. If you meet someone who asks you for money, then it’s not legit. However, you need a lot of investment for your book development overall.
Following are the things you need investment for.
- Editing
- Proofreading
Cost of Editing a Book in Traditional Publishing
First, you need to know that the editing done by the publisher is different from what you need to do. It’s like an idea presented to them, and they customize it and make some changes to it. You, however, have to reach out to them with the perfect book. Although it’s not who will reach out to them, it would be the literary agent who does that. Thus, you have to reach out to him with the perfect book and proposal to get considered. There’s actually a lot to know about reaching out to literary agents. Not everyone gets a literary agent easily.
How much money?
Moreover, there are several types of editing. Each of the types can cost you differently. And your book’s length and type can vary the amount an editor would charge. We always recommend hiring an expert editor. Don’t try saving your money by handing over the work to someone who cannot deliver the professional work. They would charge you a minimum of €500, and the price can go up depending on the editor level. So, that’s something where you need to invest. The proofreader would charge less than €500 and less than €1000.
What’s Next?
After you get your book edited and proofread, then it’s time to find out and reach the literary agent. He’ll take your book to the publisher. Literary agents don’t charge upfront. They charge a percentage of your book sales. They charge between 10-20%. The publisher takes care of your book. Your book will get edited, get its cover designed, get formatted, printed, and distributed. The publishers also charge a percentage of your book. The money you earn through this might be less, but it’s a long-term thing. You’ll keep getting paid as people will buy your book. Your book becomes more popular when you traditionally publish without you doing much work on publishing and marketing.
But there’s a long road you travel before you reach there, and that is hard.
2. Self–Publishing
Self-Publishing is in hype nowadays. It’s the best alternative to traditional publishing. However, it has some drawbacks as well that make people not want to choose to self-publish their book. A traditionally published book is more valued than a self-published one. One reason is that those books have a big publisher’s name attached to them. Thus they are considered valuable by the people. On the other hand, any individual can self-publish a book.
As a result, they do not consider your book first worthy unless someone reads it and understands its importance. Amazon Kindle Direct is one of the most popular self-publishing platforms available. However, it is mainly for ebooks. But now, you can also get a paperback version of your book on Amazon.
Cost of Self-Publishing
Basically, the case is the same here as in traditional publishing. You can self-publish a book completely free using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Moreover, you don’t have to go through the process of strict editing as you have to do when you traditionally publish your book. That’s what makes self-publishing a very easy alternative compared to other ways of publishing. The only thing you need to invest properly in is the marketing of your book. And after that, printing and distribution in case you want a physical version of your book as well.
You Can Save Editing Money When You Self-Publish
Although you can save money but should you? We’ll tell you about it. We told you earlier in the post that editing is not strict when you self-publish a book. However, it doesn’t mean you let your book stay mediocre and publish it like that. Remember, whether you traditionally publish it or not, you have ensured your book’s quality. If it is not a high-quality book, its readers won’t love it. The book won’t get many sales, and all your efforts would go in vain. Therefore, it’s essential to make it high quality.
How to make your book a high-quality one?
Firstly, the content should be great. After that, you have to leave no room for any kind of mistake in the book. We’re talking about grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, and typos. That’s the basic thing you need to make sure is correct. Moreover, you can sometimes better edit your sentences when you recheck your book. So, after you finish the manuscript, close it, and take some time off. When you come back after a few days, you will be able to pick up things in your text that you might edit and make better. Experts suggest taking a break before self-edit as it helps you to recognize mistakes better.
Editing and Proofreading Cost
The editing and proofreading cost would be the same as we told above. If you’ve got the budget, hire the editor for your book. Otherwise, you can do it yourself, but you need to be very careful and detail-oriented.
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