How Can I Minimize Start Up Cost?

I have been doing a lot of research lately about what to expect financially when self publishing your book. As part of my 7 Step Plan I have made for myself I have been putting together the expected start up cost. I have currently estimated $1,200 in cost but a lot of people on line have been saying that have spent around $5,000.

I do not know about you, but I do not have $5,000 laying around to drop on anything really.

The biggest expenses people seem to have marketing and cover designs. Theses are things that I can invest my time on instead of my money. I know if I create my own cover that it will not be as good as a professional one. My hope is that I can get the story out there enough and then if it does well do a second edition with a "proper" cover.

I have a marketing back ground so the social media marketing isn't as daunting to me as it may be for some other people. I plan on utilizes multiple platforms to see which ones garner the best results and then focusing on the top three while still maintaining somewhat of a presence on the others.

I am starting to think that I should wait until all three books have been written before I release the first one. That way I can continuously push a preorder as this seems to be the best way to get sales right now. That is going to require a lot of internal motivation to push through. It will be a good test to see if this is something I can actually do right now before sinking potentially thousands of dollars into it.

How can I minimize start up cost? Create my own covers and use social media to do my own free marketing.

Comments

Worried for Nothing?

Recently I was struggling worried, Am I Cut Out to be an Indie Author? Last week I started writing a new story since I was really struggling with the last concept that I had. In my first week of writing I wrote 20,000 words! That is insane, I didn't even know I was capable of putting up those types of numbers. I doubt this pace is maintainable but maybe I can get my number of books released per year up to four after all and cut the time to get to 20 books down from 10 year to 5 years. I am going to keep pushing through and try not to stress too much. I still think waiting until I have a few books ready to release before putting anything out is a good idea. That way I get into the habit and mindset of written without an expectation of return on investment.

Dreams on Hold

They say there is a time and place for everything. Sadly no just isn't the right time to chase this dream. Hopefully the economy will get better and I will be able to have the free time again to work on my writing. Right now I need to pick up a second job on top of everything I am already doing to help cover expenses. Ideally this only last for about six months, but I don't know for sure. The dream is there. It isn't dead it is just on hold once again.

Ups and Downs to word count

The first seven days of writing my new story I put down 23,000 words. Then a lot of life happened and I had four straight days of 0 words. Thankfully I had been crushing it that first week and am still where I need to be a with the stretched goal pass of 1,500 words a day. Before I was excited by just how much I was able to get done and was even think that I may be able to finish faster than the 54 day stretch goal. That was always a miracle goal though. My reasonable deadline for myself is 90 days. This way I can write three books a year and use the remaining days on editing and marketing. I am learning to be patient with myself and that my production isn't always going to be linear.

Suburban Indie Writer

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