What Does it Cost to Self-Publish?
Everything that comes between finished manuscript and published book
There’s an obvious caveat here: your costs will vary. But let’s dig into the variables that you can start planning for.
After your book has been drafted, written, rewritten, revised, developed, and otherwise honed into the shape you always hoped it could be—the nebulous publishing process awaits.
Keep this page bookmarked as you plan and save for this stage of the process, whether you’re weighing the benefits of a hybrid publisher’s package or hoping to tap into the freelance network for your self-publishing support. There are a lot of moving parts to this stage of book creation, but it’s more than manageable once you know what and who you’re looking for.
Now, your needs and goals can make the end stage estimates for self-publishing your book swing wildly from a couple grand on the low end to $20k or more on the high end. There’s a quality/speed/money matrix you might envision, where you can toggle the dials and decide which are more important to you.
To check these numbers and try to mock up your own calculation, you can go to https://www.the-efa.org/rates/ and follow ranges for the steps you need to outsource.
Note that a Reedsy/Fiverr type resource might get you folks who are comfortable dropping under those averages or what I quote here, while someone who has been around the block or offers something a bit more bespoke might stretch well above the averages (for good reason). And anyone working on a rush basis, unless you find them at a lucky moment, should be charging a bit more over that in order to create urgent space for you.
With all of that out of the way, here are the steps to plan for.
QA: Copyediting and Proofreading Estimates
There are three possible layers of editing for a manuscript that already says what it wants to say:
Line editing is a thorough look at the flow and articulation of the text
Copyediting assumes the lines are set but considers word/phrase-level clarity
Proofreading only looks for objective errors
You have to get at least a round of proofreading, no matter how clean you and/or your ghostwriter tend to be. Books represent a lot of moving parts with a lot of room for error. You’ve probably noticed some in your favorite books. It happens. If you skip your proofread, you guarantee it’ll happen—a lot.
Proofreading can start at less than a penny a word but shouldn’t. That’s a sign of a brand newbie, in my experience, or a company that’s exploiting its workers. You can find a decent proofreader for .02-.03/word.
Costs increase to .05-.10/word for line editing, and copyediting falls between proofreading and line editing rates. The higher end of that estimate likely stretches into “book doctoring” or really intensive support on your revision.
I personally set my editing quotes based on an evaluation of the manuscript, which includes any last revisions recommendations I have for the author before we begin to finalize the work in editing. That can be an additional cost or factored into a higher overall editing rate, depending on the editor’s preferred process.
Bare bones quote for 50,000 words to just be proofread: $1,500.
Preferable editing budget for a couple rounds of review: $4,500.
Causes for increase might include: extra support on line level quality, lots of citations, indexes or glossaries, and of course a higher word count.
Design: Cover Design and Layout Estimates
Cover design can happen as soon as you have a title set. In fact, it’s a good idea to start working in that direction as soon as you’re in the late stages of revision. That way you have a visual reminder of what you’re working toward, and you can start teasing people with it in plenty of time before launch.
That said, whether or not you have a cover when you get done with proofreading and move into layout design, it’s good to at least give your layout person that design as they work. Preferably, you’ll hire them to do both. The style consistency from cover to cover will be worth it.
Quick pause for definitions: cover design includes the front cover, the BACK cover, the arrangement of text and images, the spine, and making sure there’s room for your ISBN and barcode and such. Layout design takes your document full of (proofread!) words and turns it into a real, live book that not only looks beautiful and readable but is also formatted properly to upload without any hiccups.
Designers can but don’t always do both the cover and interior, and the paperback/hard cover/eBook versions all have different layouts (so, multiple charges). If you can get someone for all of it, fantastic. If not, be ready to provide them with your cover, inspiration for the style you’re going for, and any images you plan to include (with a good tracking system as to where those images go, like “[image 1: mom and me]” tags in the document with corresponding image file titled the same.
Technically, some of you could just fix a PDF up for upload yourself, but please don’t. These folks are magic and can carry the aesthetic of a book into details you hadn't thought about.
Plus, Amazon is finicky about uploads being formatted right.
Plus plus, we ALL judge books by their cover. The quality of this step will be the difference between “no one looks at publisher imprints anymore—you can publish anywhere!” and “Oh. That…is a self-published book.”
Just...Please outsource this step. It's worth it.
Once again, there is a huge range in pricing that can indicate anything from low-quality or basic templated work to someone who happens to be super efficient. Make sure you’re getting a portfolio with your quote, and have a solid consult call before moving forward. Don't go with a cheap service without knowing what you're getting into and don't go for the most expensive route without seeing proof of their work.
My colleague Anton at bookcoversforall.com has really accessible options that range from $150 for a basic layout to about $950 for a single layout with lots of images. Cindy at mareaalta.co designed my book, and has a quote sheet for everything from various layouts to the publishing imprint logo. I’d be happy to send that over to anyone who asks. She also does larger strategic work, so you might find marketing or business help here too.
Pro tip: Estimate your page count by assuming 250 words/page. This will vary based on book size and images and font size, but it’s a decent guess.
Rough estimate for two layout versions (paperback and eBook): $1500-3000.
Causes for increase can include lots of images and odd book sizes.
Upload: Actual Book Publishing Estimate
This step is way easier than hybrids and traditional publishers tell you. You can DIY it, but it may be worth outsourcing the stress.
You need to buy an ISBN and barcode, maybe at your cover design stage, then get a copyright. Then upload to KDP or Ingram Spark and choose your categories and royalty rates.
I did this bit on my own for my workbook. I held my breath and Googled a lot all the way through, but I didn’t die (and the last button to publish came shockingly fast and unceremoniously. Heads up).
If you do want help, especially to get your keyword/metadata strategies right, I’ve got loads of friends and colleagues who can pop in and help you manage.
Note: My quotes here don’t include audiobook services, which again can vary wildly (my library has a recording book setup, for example, or you can hire out a professional for upwards of $4k). I left them off because it’s not strictly necessary, especially for launch day. You can come back to that later.
Expect $100/hr for a few hours of work at minimum.
An all-inclusive positioning, upload, QA, and support through the process can cost $1500.
Platform: Author Website / Book Landing Page Estimate
You probably already know how intense this kind of work can get. I don’t begrudge web designers for their rates, but I do want you to match your investment to ROI here.
Templates these days are excellent, and all you really need is a place for your book cover image, newsletter sign up, and “preorder/order” to go. Ideally, on your existing website rather than a brand new domain. After all, you want to connect with people around the work you’re already doing or hope to do.
So DIY here can work, just don’t build beyond your capabilities.
The range is wide. I have a Jill-of-all-trades colleague who uses templates like a wizard and pulls gorgeous, simple landing pages together for $500, and an author working a landing page into a full site redesign for $5,000.
Causes for increase are all complexity and timeline related. The more building you want someone to do, the more it’ll cost.
Marketing: Initial Strategy / Support Estimate
Again, you’re likely familiar with these costs and how crazy it can get. This industry is bonkers though, so make sure you understand what your marketer is offering/doing when they quote you. More importantly, understand what YOU are offering/doing.
Is your book part of a funnel to another product or service? Fold it into that marketing project.
Is your book your first line of marketing for YOU (speaker, consultant, etc)? Fold it into marketing for that outcome.
Because those are ongoing/forever kind of expenses or projects, I’m not even going to touch them here. But it’s 100% the best way to think about marketing your book. In fact, it’s less about marketing your book and more about bringing your book into your existing (or necessary) marketing plan.
For now, let’s just think about getting your book into the world.
Your basic book launch and early influencer strategy looks like getting a lead magnet up, reaching out to influencers who might review your book or bring you into their platform, having an official launch event/offering (webinar, etc), running promotions for the first week or so, and getting an ongoing lead magnet-to-book funnel in place.
Again, these steps are totally DIYable if you have the time and want to save the money. It’s also totally reasonable to outsource it.
My friend Tim Grahl wrote Your First 1000 Copies just for this. My friend Sue serves authors at pagesandplatforms.com when they need deep support as they DIY. Rising Authors is doing great work in the author-platform space as well. My same Jill-of-all-trades can rock influencer research and outreach for you. And I know folks who offer complete done-for-you launch packages.
Expect $50 an hour minimum for the leg work of researching and reaching out to influencers, $100 an hour minimum for consulting/coaching you, and $3000-5000 for a more complete support package.
Causes for increase would be duration of time and level of service.
Summary of Self-Publishing Costs
Taking all of the variables into account, that’s a ballpark of $10,000 for multiple proofing levels, multiple layouts, some uploading support, a basic landing page, and some marketing support for a 50k word book with images.
Do you have to spend that much? Nope. Could you spend a lot more? Yep.
My friend Alex, who has helped folks on that upload step but rocks as a ghostwriter, noted: “For a simple book with limited formatting, it’s very possible to stay in that $5-6k range…but it goes up from there based on marketing, formatting, etc.”
Here's her breakdown:
I tell people to put aside 6 to 8 hours of competitor research and category, keyword, and pricing selection. If you do it well you can benefit from category push and ideally Amazon category bestseller strategy.
You can learn a LOT about positioning from your competitor books in the space. That’ll cost you like $400 to 500 and patience if you get me to do it slowly around other work, time, or either more or less from other professionals depending on their tools and process.
I’ve picked categories that helped books get category bestsellers several times. So $2500 editing plus $500 metadata plus $1500 to $2500 cover and formatting, plus $500 landing page, $500 listing, $1000 marketing strategy and ideas is $7k.
Easily squeezed to $6k by watching pennies.
The fab Rose Friel, who can connect you to professionals in all of these categories, says that “I’d recommend comfortably putting aside $20k…for any hiccups that might happen.”
My recommendation: Don’t get caught in the trap of throwing money at the anxiety of “publishing.”
Remember the point of writing in the first place. Keep your original direction for this project front and center. When you do that, you can find that a tight budget is no match for tight content that you’re happy to share in PDF form person by person if absolutely necessary.
On the flip side, if you lose sight of your direction, you could spend a ton on a gorgeous book that your audience doesn’t care a bit about…while someone else pieces together a good-enough book that gets them into all the doors that their people are waiting behind.
I hope this post helped! Hit reply or let me know in the comments if you’d like to explore this topic further in a workshop.