E-publishing Expenses: Are You Spending More Than You Make?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on Common E-publishing Questions, and one of them was “How much does it cost to publish an ebook?” I talked about how you’d probably want to spend some money on editing, cover art, and formatting, but I also mentioned something I feel it’s important to keep in mind: you can e-publish your book for free.

Some of the people doing very well right now started out having a friend or critique buddy edit their work, and they did their cover art themselves. And I’ve seen more than one ebook selling decently (going by the sales rank) with no cover at all.

I’m not recommending that, mind you, but I want to bring awareness to the fact that up-front expenses are optional. You can technically format your ebook yourself and upload it to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords (an outfit that can get you into the other ebook stores) for free.

As e-publishing becomes more and more popular, there are lots of industries cropping up to sell things to indie authors. Most, if not all, of these businesses are perfectly legitimate, selling things such as ebook formatting, distribution, cover art, advertising, etc., but their ultimate goal is, of course, to make money from your new endeavor.

As an up-and-coming author, it’s worth keeping track of expenses, because, for most of us, writing fiction is never going to be a hugely profitable adventure. While I think there’s potential to make a full-time income from e-publishing, this is going to be nothing more than a hobby for the majority of the people who get into it. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Paying Up-front for Distribution?

Because most people won’t sell a ton of ebooks, I’m leery about recommending formatting and distribution services that charge substantial up-front fees and/or tack on an annual fee for each title you publish through them (and why I recommended Smashwords the other day–they’re not perfect, but their business model means they only make money if you make money, since they take a cut of your earnings rather than charging you up-front fees). If you’re selling a lot of ebooks, then these fees won’t matter much, and that distribution set-up might make sense for you, but if you’re selling a book a day or less, it’s worth whipping out the calculator and doing some math.

Is your e-publishing hobby costing you money every month?

Advertising, usually a losing proposition

I’ve paid for several advertising opportunities over the last few months, and the best I can say for any of them is that I came close to breaking even. In most cases, it wasn’t even close.

Most of your advertising opportunities come via message boards and blogs, and are pricey (in a you’re-unlikely-to-earn-back-what-you-spend kind of way).

Message boards are almost always a losing gig, since people come to socialize rather than to buy. It’s easy to get suckered into the idea that you’re “branding yourself” by appearing lots of places. Eh. Maybe. I’ve seen some folks branding themselves one month (ads all over the place) and languishing in the one-ebook-sale-a-week club the next.

Blogs could, in theory, be a good place to advertise, but most of them cater to general ebook audiences, rather than a specific genre (so odds are against visitors actually being readers of cozy mysteries or science fiction or whatever your niche is), and most of them don’t get that much traffic, probably not enough to justify the expense of the ad (though sellers will charge whatever the market will bear, so we can’t blame them if the costs are high).

Speaking as someone who makes a living selling advertising, I’m a little floored that bloggers are charging fees of $25-$30 for daily ads on blogs that, quite frankly, don’t have many visitors per day.

For a little perspective, I charge $100 for a sponsored post and $50 a month for a text link in the side bar on my home-and-garden blog, which gets over 100,000 visitors a month in a very specific niche. Granted that’s ancillary income (most comes from Adsense, which only charges an advertiser if the ad is actually clicked), but those are pretty typical figures for the industry. Also, in the home-and-garden niche, a merchant stands to make a heck of a lot more from a sale than we authors do from the sale of a $2.99 ebook.

With the exception of sponsored blog posts (which live on perpetually and should include keyword-based links to the advertiser’s site because people largely buy these for search-engine-optimization purposes), I’d never seen anyone charge for daily ads until I started surfing around blogs catering to indie authors.

I don’t begrudge those bloggers anything–hey, I’ve got the entrepreneurial spirit too!–and I’ve even purchased ads to support them since many of them are indie authors themselves, but, again, it’s worth being aware of the cash you put out versus the cash you take in. Paying $25 for a daily sponsorship when your ebook is 99 cents (thus making you 35-40 cents per sale) on a blog that gets 100 visitors a day, most of whom probably don’t buy books in your genre… is unlikely to make you enough money to cover the expense of the ad.

If you do want to advertise, I’ve had some luck with Goodreads. I’d also advertise in a heartbeat on a popular genre-based blog.

At the end of the day, I think you can do as much for yourself, however, by giving away review copies, getting involved in social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and getting to know other bloggers and offering to guest post for them (I’ve written on Guest Blogging Your Way out of Obscurity), as authors and readers are often open to helping each other out this way.

I know I’ve rambled a bit here, so I’ll close with my reminder that you technically can publish your ebook for free, and all expenses are optional. While I believe you should have cover art, a professionally edited manuscript, and decent formatting, most further expenses are something to be weighed. If you can afford to throw away money, then, hey, try everything (I’ve certainly tried a lot myself!), but we’re probably all better off approaching this like a business and watching what we spend carefully to make sure the earnings at the end of the month justify those expenses.