Greetings, dear friend! I do hope you are well and ready for a festive season. Is that Christmas tree ready? Were all gifts bought, wrapped, and so well hidden that only Santa could spot them? Nothing of that kind in our house, although I saw some boxes in the wardrobe… I hope they are all for us cats! But no Christmas tree yet - Mum had the flu, so she's late this year. She should hurry, I have to redecorate it! Mum needs to learn to do this; she always hangs things on the wrong branches.
Self-Publishing- a Profitable Business?
When Mum and I embarked on self-publishing our books, "Freddy’s Magic Garden" and “Paws, Tails and Tales”, we quickly learned it's far from a get-rich-quick scheme. Here's a snapshot of our expenses:
Writing and Development: There is no cost here as we use our free time.
Editing: We hired a professional service, costing about $4,500 for 86,000 words.
Illustrations: No expense for "Freddy’s Magic Garden" as we used our photos.
Layout and Formatting: Professional services for both print and e-book versions cost $1,500.
Cover Design: A reasonable $350 in total.
ISBN and Barcodes: Offered for free by Amazon.
Printing Costs: We chose a print-on-demand model, paying per copy printed.
Advertising and Publicity: Before even publishing Freddy’s Magic Garden, we were down $6,500. Then comes the crucial part: advertising and publicity. Amazon won’t promote your book amidst their millions, so it's up to you. Getting 50 positive reviews is vital before you even think of advertising effectively. We spent about $2,000 on editorial reviews for Freddy’s Magic Garden and attempted pay-per-click campaigns on BookBub and Amazon. The latter did generate sales but at a significant loss. For instance, a $500 investment last November in Amazon ads brought in only $220 in revenue. Regularly, Amazon ads generate a loss of 50%. Not using them means no sales, so this game is like trying to square the circle.
So far, the total expenses for "Freddy’s Magic Garden" are around $8,000 - $9,000, with a net revenue under $4,000, despite having excellent editorial and reader reviews and tens of readers sending heartwarming feedback.
In short, self-publishing is a challenging and often non-profitable venture. It's more likely to drain your bank account than fill it, demanding a lot of work and worry. If you're looking for a business that won't bring quick riches but will empty your wallet, self-publishing might be the perfect fit.
We hope the situation will gradually improve once we reach 150 five or four-star reviews on Amazon.
Regarding our last book, “Paws, Tails and Tales”, we cannot start an advertising campaign until we reach 50 positive reviews. If you have already read it, please post a review on Amazon. Below are the direct links to make things easy:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/create-review?&asin=B0CPW8SXDC
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review?&asin=B0CPW8SXDC
If you have not read it, now is the perfect time! We are running a free download until Thursday, 21. Dec., available on all Amazon marketplaces! Lovely, heartwarming cat and dog stories written by my Twitter friends and myself are waiting for you; you won't be deceived!
https://t.co/cH3QlVlABC
(The above is the UK link, but the Kindle edition is free on all Amazon marketplaces).
Enough talking for today. I will be back next week with a few Christmas recipes and a true story about a lion who once decided to change his destiny and become the king of his world.
I wish you a lovely evening and a wonderful start to the upcoming holiday season!
Your loving writer,
Freddy
I’m on it!
I knew self publishing wasn’t cheap, but, wow, I’m going into the editing and layout business all of a sudden. Sadly, I doubt anybody would want to pay me that much!
Good luck, Freddy and mum. x
Ah, well. Actually I might be better at layout! 😁 But I’ve never done a book, only much smaller stuff.
I’ll post a review for you in the new year.