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I got an email last month from someone who'd read one of my books. Nice person. Genuinely excited about writing their own novel. And they asked me the question I get more than any other: "How much does it actually cost to self-publish?"
I gave them an honest answer, and they never replied.
I get it. The numbers aren't pretty. There's this persistent myth floating around that self-publishing is free — that you just upload a Word document to Amazon and start cashing royalty checks. I bought into that myth myself, back when I published my first book. I learned pretty quickly that "free" is the most expensive option there is.
I've published over twenty books across multiple series at this point. Horror, fantasy, thriller, romance under a pen name. I know this from personal experience: the money side of indie publishing is something nobody talks about honestly. They either lowball the numbers to sell you a course, or they inflate everything to make you feel like you need their expensive service. Here's what I actually spend.
Stephen King once said that talent is "cheaper than table salt" — that what separates the talented from the successful is hard work. I used to think he was talking about the writing itself. Turns out he might as well have been talking about the spreadsheet I keep of publishing expenses.
"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." — Stephen King
"Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on." — Louis L'Amour
