I Will Reach $10,000 USD monthly in Self-Publishing.

[Mark Anthony Le]

Hello all,

First of all much deserved thanks goes to HELD FOR RANSOM and his thread over at https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/showthread.php/46006-Hello-from-Denver-self-publishing-success

This is my own progress thread where I will try my best to pump out as much books as possible, as entertaining as possible, to Kindle.

I've already hit the publish button on Kindle for my first book ever and is now under review.

Pumping out my second book as of now with an outline first.

My goals in this are:

To make enough money to quit my day time job
To make sure that I have enough capital so I can have a child while staying home
To make sure that my family will no longer be in a financial mess.
To escape the rat race
To be free with the mundane repetitive tasks of the people in society today who don't have a sense of purpose.
To be my own man.
To travel
To own multiple houses
To be the first in my family that actually makes money and lives his own life on his own rules.

MOTIVATION:

[video=youtube;g-jwWYX7Jlo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-jwWYX7Jlo[/video]


Please. Join me in my quest and i'm sure we'll all make it together.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE HUNGRY

 

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[Vigilante]

Hello all,

First of all much deserved thanks goes to HELD FOR RANSOM and his thread over at https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/showthread.php/46006-Hello-from-Denver-self-publishing-success

This is my own progress thread where I will try my best to pump out as much books as possible, as entertaining as possible, to Kindle.

I've already hit the publish button on Kindle for my first book ever and is now under review.

Pumping out my second book as of now with an outline first.

My goals in this are:

To make enough money to quit my day time job
To make sure that I have enough capital so I can have a child while staying home
To make sure that my family will no longer be in a financial mess.
To escape the rat race
To be free with the mundane repetitive tasks of the people in society today who don't have a sense of purpose.
To be my own man.
To travel
To own multiple houses
To be the first in my family that actually makes money and lives his own life on his own rules.

MOTIVATION:

[video=youtube;g-jwWYX7Jlo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-jwWYX7Jlo[/video]


Please. Join me in my quest and i'm sure we'll all make it together.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE HUNGRY

Throw all of those goals out.

Change your whole mindset.

Make your ONLY goal to be to provide books that people read and enjoy.

Then, all of the rest of your goals will come true.

Change the focus from YOU to THEM.

 

[Held for Ransom]

Throw all of those goals out.

Change your whole mindset.

Make your ONLY goal to be to provide books that people read and enjoy.

Then, all of the rest of your goals will come true.

Change the focus from YOU to THEM.

Couldn't have said that any better myself...

Glad we could inspire you. Now go write good books. A LOT OF THEM. The rest will follow.

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Make your ONLY goal to be to provide books that people read and enjoy.

That's preciously why I started. My goals, however, are my passion. Passion is going to fuel me to not chase the michevious cat but rather provide value to the world.

 

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[JAJT]

To make sure that my family will no longer be in a financial mess.

Money can't solve this.

Only the understanding of your existing financial habits and what needs to change (and then actually changing) will help.

If your house is on fire, you don't quickly build a bigger and bigger house to outrun the fire. You put out the fire first THEN you can rebuild while making sure you don't accidentally set the house on fire again.

(I don't know your situation, but the above to applies to the vast majority of North America, so excuse the generalization).

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

I understand what you're saying. It's already been fixed. It's up to me now to bring my family up past mediocrity.

Money can't solve this.

Only the understanding of your existing financial habits and what needs to change (and then actually changing) will help.

If your house is on fire, you don't quickly build a bigger and bigger house to outrun the fire. You put out the fire first THEN you can rebuild while making sure you don't accidentally set the house on fire again.

(I don't know your situation, but the above to applies to the vast majority of North America, so excuse the generalization).

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Ahh. Book is now live

Man, formatting the the novella in Apple's Pages was a pain in the a$$.

I enrolled in the free countdown special with kindle select just to get the ball rolling first with exposure.

Pumping out book number 2 now. Highly debating whether to continue the 2nd book as a sequeal to the first book or literally dive into another novella completely.

 

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[GuestUser113]

Hello all,

First of all much deserved thanks goes to HELD FOR RANSOM and his thread over at https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/showthread.php/46006-Hello-from-Denver-self-publishing-success

This is my own progress thread where I will try my best to pump out as much books as possible, as entertaining as possible, to Kindle.

I've already hit the publish button on Kindle for my first book ever and is now under review.

Pumping out my second book as of now with an outline first.

My goals in this are:

To make enough money to quit my day time job
To make sure that I have enough capital so I can have a child while staying home
To make sure that my family will no longer be in a financial mess.
To escape the rat race
To be free with the mundane repetitive tasks of the people in society today who don't have a sense of purpose.
To be my own man.
To travel
To own multiple houses
To be the first in my family that actually makes money and lives his own life on his own rules.

MOTIVATION:

[video=youtube;g-jwWYX7Jlo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-jwWYX7Jlo[/video]


Please. Join me in my quest and i'm sure we'll all make it together.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE HUNGRY

Not to emphasize what everyone has said already.

"You are writing for the reader, who is your ultimate gatekeeper. Get your work in front of them, even if it’s one at a time, one reader a month or year." Hugh Howey from My advice to aspiring authors

 

[Hicks]

Ahh. Book is now live

Man, formatting the the novella in Apple's Pages was a pain in the a$$.

I enrolled in the free countdown special with kindle select just to get the ball rolling first with exposure.

Pumping out book number 2 now. Highly debating whether to continue the 2nd book as a sequeal to the first book or literally dive into another novella completely.

Hi. Congrats on getting started.

not to be a bore but:

1) I think a prerequisite of enroling in kdp select and doing free promos is that you can't have the book on any other platform (ie apple store). Please check this for your self.

2) also out interest are your books in English?

Well done with the progress. Best of luck

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Hi. Congrats on getting started.

not to be a bore but:

1) I think a prerequisite of enroling in kdp select and doing free promos is that you can't have the book on any other platform (ie apple store). Please check this for your self.

2) also out interest are your books in English?

Well done with the progress. Best of luck

Hey Hicks,

About the KDP Select, yea it's officially kindle only. I might be wrong but it's only for 90 days I think? Not home to double checks

And yea my book is in English. Albeit, I was never the greatest English student in my classes in college, practice makes perfect

Just trying to supply a demand in the market is all.

 

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[Mark Anthony Le]

Not to emphasize what everyone has said already.

"You are writing for the reader, who is your ultimate gatekeeper. Get your work in front of them, even if it’s one at a time, one reader a month or year." Hugh Howey from My advice to aspiring authors

Amen.

Slowly trying to do that now. I know it's a process, not an event. I'm prepared to go through challenges to entertaining my readers

 

[COSenior]

You've made a great start, so congratulations. Welcome to the club. Hope to see you post good progress regularly.

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

You've made a great start, so congratulations. Welcome to the club. Hope to see you post good progress regularly.

Thanks!


Quick Update:

Writing:
Currently just finished outlining a new story.
I've been reading the 2K to 10K book and it's actually quite good considering that it's only 99 cents.

I'm about to start the 2nd novel now in terms of writing and word count.


Book #1 Update:
Hmm... Apparently only have 4 downloads so far. No reviews as of yet.

Curiosity:
What if we started a book meeting where we exchange books and proofread each others books? In terms of grammar of course. Voice and other narratives should be left out of being edited but I feel that we could at the very least help and share each other's work.

Just throwing that out there

 

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[Mark Anthony Le]

UPDATE #2

Just finished off a 4500 word count after 3 hours of writing. Averaging I guess about a thousand and some change for each hour.

My word count has picked up dramatically after developing an outline first. It has help cement my ideas when I hit a rut.

You guys should definitely try it!

 

[joanna]

I try to sometimes plan ahead and outline, and plan in more detail than "this thing needs to happen at some point", but 90% of time my stories quickly get derailed :/ Or the outline just feels flat and lame, especially in comparison to the batshit crazy stunts my characters tend to pull on me... My writing speed is about 500 words/h which sucks.

But your point made me wonder. How much time did you spend outlining? Do you do it once ahead of the book, or separately for each scene?

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

I try to sometimes plan ahead and outline, and plan in more detail than "this thing needs to happen at some point", but 90% of time my stories quickly get derailed :/ Or the outline just feels flat and lame, especially in comparison to the batshit crazy stunts my characters tend to pull on me... My writing speed is about 500 words/h which sucks.

But your point made me wonder. How much time did you spend outlining? Do you do it once ahead of the book, or separately for each scene?

Hey Joanna,

This is exactly how I do it:
First I spend time to outline the story . Literally brain dump all of my ideas out onto a piece of paper or on the computer into a page. The point is to just drop all the words and vomit it all into hard physical words .

This might take anywhere from 15-45 minutes perhaps an hour.

From there I'll put together and mix and match the ideas into a story

But as long as the story is conceived, I'm good.

Afterward's ill outline everything that's going to happen. Minus the dialogs.

I'll come up with the dialogs after I'm done with the general outline of a story.

After the outline is done, dialog is honed in. Not preciously exact but a general idea of what's going to be said.

I'll do this from start to finish and then once it's complete I start writing.

I find that doing that has helped me immensely, I hope it helps you out too.

I find that not being 100% specific in the outline has helped give my characters freedom to do what they want when the time comes. That way I'm not restricted to anything.

Perhaps you're feeling that your story is flat because you haven't brain dumped everything completely. I usually find myself stuck and feeling my story's flat when I have other ideas running that I could just hitchhike with.

 

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[Mark Anthony Le]

Update #3:

Only had about an hour today to pump out some words, was able to pump out about 1,000 words and some change within that time span.

I really am a firm believe in having an outline now before writing. It has dramatically helped me keep my word count higher and higher each writing session. I'm going to find other ways to tweak this to see if i can increase my word output even more.

I've notice that when I actually like my story I can pump out more words than usual. So if I find out that theres a scene that bores me, It'll mostlikely bore my readers as well. Since changing my philosophy and literally eraddicating all scenes that bore me, i've been able to create even more gripping scenes that I can resonate with.



___

Book update:

Hmm I've only had about 28 downloads on my first book. Not sure why it's so little. I'm going to take it off the free promotion to see if I see any sales. If not, then i'll leave it as is.

The point is to pump out as much books as possible as quickly as possible and as entertaining as possible.

 

[joanna]

First I spend time to outline the story . Literally brain dump all of my ideas out onto a piece of paper or on the computer into a page. The point is to just drop all the words and vomit it all into hard physical words .

I guess I do a bit of that by doing a mind map, or planning out some key scenes up front, when I do try to follow some -act-ish structure. I find most of the time what my mind gives me is the ending, or an epic scene that precedes it. I like stories that have twists and unexpected endings, so I guess that's what comes to me naturally.

After the outline is done, dialog is honed in. Not preciously exact but a general idea of what's going to be said.

That's interesting, so essentially dialogues become part of your outline? I would find that hard, since often the dialogues hinge on there being an opening for a line. I sometimes have a running list of "still need to have these topics discussed by these characters" in my head. Maybe it's a matter of genre, but it can feel really infodumpy in epic fantasy, when your characters just go on explaining stuff "for hours". Recently I changed my minds three or so times as to in which scene to deliver some piece of information, because there seemed to be no good opener for it...

I find that not being 100% specific in the outline has helped give my characters freedom to do what they want when the time comes. That way I'm not restricted to anything.

Oh, my outlines usually are very top level and unspecific. And that's sometimes the problem. I find that as I write a scene small details start to appear, or specific hints get dropped in the dialogue, that actually can completely change the course of the story. The dilemma is if I outline deep enough to research most of these ahead of time, it will be restricted and I would waste a lot of time, if I do stumble upon something that works better but requires scrapping half the existing outline. On the other hand a loose outline lends itself to even more of these changes :/

I guess these aren't very commercial either. I think I do have faster output with something that I'm less emotionally attached to, and that doesn't have a vast world already developed. A downside to a series, you have to make sure they're all consistent and timelines and characters align in all the books. Foreshadowing for book X, Y, and Z doesn't make writing faster either

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

I guess I do a bit of that by doing a mind map, or planning out some key scenes up front, when I do try to follow some -act-ish structure. I find most of the time what my mind gives me is the ending, or an epic scene that precedes it. I like stories that have twists and unexpected endings, so I guess that's what comes to me naturally.

I find that is good to have an ending in the forefront. It helps you make sure where you need to go to acquire that goal. So let's say if a characters goal is to accomplish XYZ. Let's make sure the entire goal of the book is to accomplish XYZ.

I can vouch that It gets reeealllly easy to get side tracked without a definitive goal and ending of the novel at hand. We all want to add clues and spectacular endings and twists to make it the next best thought provoking novel.

Sometimes it's easier though to just get one idea and goal out of the way, keeping at it until we become masters at one particular ending. Once we accomplish that, is when I feel like we should be tossing in great works of artistic concepts

Until then though, pumping out good work on a consistent basis rather than one great work is ideal.

That's interesting, so essentially dialogues become part of your outline? I would find that hard, since often the dialogues hinge on there being an opening for a line. I sometimes have a running list of "still need to have these topics discussed by these characters" in my head. Maybe it's a matter of genre, but it can feel really infodumpy in epic fantasy, when your characters just go on explaining stuff "for hours". Recently I changed my minds three or so times as to in which scene to deliver some piece of information, because there seemed to be no good opener for it...

Perhaps it came off the wrong way. My outlines often contribute to the follow up of the dialogs. So I would usually draw out in my outline:

Jenny meets Marc
Jenny flirt with Marc
Marc needs to leave because of XYZ.

And then in a honed in dialog of "Jenny flirts with Marc" I would usually outline specific notes I have that I need to get across between both characters.

So under "Jenny flirts with Marc":
Jenny says she likes fruits
Marc says he likes vegetables
Jenny says she likes healthy people
Marc says he likes people who work out
Jenny says Marc looks good
Marc says jenny looks like a goddess.

So on and so forth. It leaves room for more notes if I felt it was right when I type later on in the story. And honestly, I feel that readers like similarity. So the more the characters feel and sound like real people in everyday life, the better.

Oh, my outlines usually are very top level and unspecific. And that's sometimes the problem. I find that as I write a scene small details start to appear, or specific hints get dropped in the dialogue, that actually can completely change the course of the story. The dilemma is if I outline deep enough to research most of these ahead of time, it will be restricted and I would waste a lot of time, if I do stumble upon something that works better but requires scrapping half the existing outline. On the other hand a loose outline lends itself to even more of these changes :/

I feel this is an issue with determining the goals of the story. Make sure you outline the specific ending and what each character does to accomplish their tasks . It's easy to jump from idea to idea if you have no definitive goals that each character is suppose to complete.

I guess these aren't very commercial either. I think I do have faster output with something that I'm less emotionally attached to, and that doesn't have a vast world already developed. A downside to a series, you have to make sure they're all consistent and timelines and characters align in all the books. Foreshadowing for book X, Y, and Z doesn't make writing faster either

Haha I couldn't agree more. It is hard. I've seen people outline everything a character embodies. Everything from landscape , environment to characters and pets. They use Scrivener and other fancy tools. I simply don't have the income for that yet.

 

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[joanna]

I can vouch that It gets reeealllly easy to get side tracked without a definitive goal and ending of the novel at hand. We all want to add clues and spectacular endings and twists to make it the next best thought provoking novel.

Getting side tracked is one thing. Personally, as a reader I've often been disappointed when an interesting concept basically fizzles out into something boring and predictable, especially in the last third of the book. Conforming to genre standards and expectations is all nice and well, but I just expect more. I guess I'm fussy, but I try to do what I expect from others in my own books. And it's not about being literary or especially thought provoking, but just making the book stand out and being memorable after someone reads it.

The goal doesn't change, but sometimes the way to achieve it does. For example, my original outline had mostly a single character going from interest point A to interest point B. The scenes I ended writing didn't work, lacked tension, so I threw in another character to the mix. Again, planned for some things going from A to B. Now, my MC has the ability to heal at night using water - I know that. The two characters get badly injured and all the little things are there for the healing - they barely survive, the night is near and after days of drought a storm is coming. But once I wrote up to that point it felt too easy. The character has the ability but really shouldn't know it, so making her "discover" it conveniently at this point felt a bit like cheating. Thus I end up adding a few more scenes where they have to recover using other means before they can get to point B. It also means reader never finds out the character can do this in this book, but does better explain the bond that forms between the two characters.

Sometimes it's easier though to just get one idea and goal out of the way, keeping at it until we become masters at one particular ending. Once we accomplish that, is when I feel like we should be tossing in great works of artistic concepts

Do you mean keep at the one goal for that book, or in general repeat one type of goal, as in use a pattern for your plot? I don't think I could do 100% formulaic writing (nothing wrong with it though - there's a huge audience for it...), I get bored too easily if the writing doesn't surprise me

I feel this is an issue with determining the goals of the story. Make sure you outline the specific ending and what each character does to accomplish their tasks . It's easy to jump from idea to idea if you have no definitive goals that each character is suppose to complete.

Really need to start my own thread Maybe it's the word "tasks" that makes this sound a bit off to me. I find in some of my endings it doesn't really matter what the characters "do" in the middle. It's about getting them to a specific mindset by the time the book ends, rather than having them collect this or that or finish one quest or the other.

For example in the current one for the plot I needed the MC to acquire a friend and then lose them. The how is only a fun filler. I guess in this context the "tasks" are the acquisition and loss. There is information I need to deliver to the reader so that they have a context for the ending, but again from whom and in what situation it comes is really open. That's why although I usually will plan the events in the first outline, it can change dramatically. Also there's bits and bobs that I know I will need for say novel 5 or this or that short story, that need to be worked in now as foreshadowing, so I can reference them later.

They use Scrivener and other fancy tools. I simply don't have the income for that yet.

Scrivener is amazing. It takes a little to get used to, but now I only use Word for the final edit and to work with the editor as the track changes feature is essential.

As for outlining everything I only treat the books that have been published as "bible". World and character building excessively upfront can be very overwhelming, so I like to combine 2 methods for establishing new characters:
1) Holly Lisle's basic questions about a characters wants and needs - from memory it goes something like: What the character wants? What the character needs? What would they give up to achieve their goals? What wouldn't they give up?
2) Pick 3 things that are unique and/or stand out - these often relate to physical traits (it's also a good rule of thumb for not overdoing descriptions, personally I'm not a fan of characters being introduced as "blue eyed, blond hair, 5''5 tall, crooked nosed, bearded, and flat footed handsome man" )

The MCs might get a tiny bit more attention, and side characters sometimes a bit less and I just let them reveal stuff about themselves organically.

(It's another thing that I write in a shared world which has tons and tons of material already established, which I try to comply with, but I'm not religious about it until I settle on an interpretation in something I publish.)

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Wow Joanna. I would love to work one on one with you and your stories.

This really might sound like something best verbalized. I find it personally that if I spoke about a story with someone, my mind starts connecting a plethora of new cemented ideas that can ground my characters and what I want them to accomplish, realize, or discover by the end of the book.

It sounds to me like you're writing a Sci-Fi book with vast worldly events.

I would love to work with you personally if you would like to! I feel that my stories could use some of your indepth-ness.

Update #4:

Wrote about only 700 words today in 30 minutes. I had woken up a tad bit later than 4AM today and didn't get a chance to pump out more than time.

On other news, my first book had its first sale last night!

Stoked as hell and can't wait to keep at it and pumping out more books.

 

[Thriftypreneur]

On other news, my first book had its first sale last night!

Congrats. May it be the first of many, many, many more.

 

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[joanna]

It sounds to me like you're writing a Sci-Fi book with vast worldly events.

Yeah it spans not just geographically, but also time wise - the arc spans over more than a millennium.
http://uuttatoivoa.com/archive/plotting-the-whole-series-teaser-tuesday
This one's fantasy, but my SF one's aren't much smaller in scale. Things get out of hand quickly...

I do need to do a short story for an anthology soon, so I might post details about the process/progress of that on the forum. Slightly worried how I'm going to fit in just 6k.

Yeah, bouncing ideas of another person can lead to a lot more complex and creative stories. Especially if you have the right person that's ont he same wave length. I admit I am jealous sometimes of my sis who writes with her friend (they are co-authors under one pen name). Just their word counts are so much higher with two people typing But it also helps alleviate that fear of: "is this even making sense?"

I would love to work with you personally if you would like to! I feel that my stories could use some of your indepth-ness.

Ha ha ha, not sure it's helping me sell those stories though What genre do you write in? If you don't want to post in public just PM me with a few details. I'm not a proofreader but I do some developmental editing/advice for peeps on the side.

Congrats on the sale! It really is a long term business, and those sales eventually do start adding up, even if they seem small at first or when looking at a single book. And 700 words in 30 min is a nice pace. Now you just need a few more of those 30min sessions

 

[H. Palmer]

Hey Hicks,

About the KDP Select, yea it's officially kindle only. I might be wrong but it's only for 90 days I think? Not home to double checks

And yea my book is in English. Albeit, I was never the greatest English student in my classes in college, practice makes perfect

Just trying to supply a demand in the market is all.

I just checked this. Indeed, the "content exclusively for kindle" limitation is for the first 90 days. This is what they call the "enrollment" period.

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Yeah, bouncing ideas of another person can lead to a lot more complex and creative stories. Especially if you have the right person that's ont he same wave length. I admit I am jealous sometimes of my sis who writes with her friend (they are co-authors under one pen name). Just their word counts are so much higher with two people typing But it also helps alleviate that fear of: "is this even making sense?"

It does. Either way i'm sure you'll be fine. I don't see why in the future we can't have writing collaborations in general with other writers in the forum. It would be pretty cool to collective create stories. But then the issue of money comes into play once more

Congrats on the sale! It really is a long term business, and those sales eventually do start adding up, even if they seem small at first or when looking at a single book. And 700 words in 30 min is a nice pace. Now you just need a few more of those 30min sessions

Haha yea! I try to squeeze in my writings in the morning due to my job demands during the day. Would love to be able to write from morning to night. It'll offload a hefty amount of pages in my novellas and cut several mornings out for me if I did.

I just checked this. Indeed, the "content exclusively for kindle" limitation is for the first 90 days. This is what they call the "enrollment" period.

Yea, it sucks. It's ok though. My second novella isn't going under KDP select!

 

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[Mark Anthony Le]

Update #5:

Finished up my novella. Now off to proofreading and creating a cover.

Is anyone having any problems with keywords and titles?

I've been trying to analyze and come up with some key words that make books in my genre and niche popular. So i've been identifying words that trigger my target audiences to purchase and click on.

Anyone have any luck with that?

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Question: do you guys suggest getting a cover paid for on Fiverr ? Or is it better off learning how to do it on my own ?

 

[Thriftypreneur]

Question: do you guys suggest getting a cover paid for on Fiverr ? Or is it better off learning how to do it on my own ?

Whatever you can do to get the highest quality product is what I would do. If that's do-it-yourself, then do that. If that's fiver, then do that. If it's hire a professional designer, then do that.

Just figure out what's the best/most affordable way to get the highest quality packaging for your product.

I do my own, for right now, most because I'm a control freak and it's very, very cheap if you can do your own, but I also enjoy it.

 

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[Mark Anthony Le]

Whatever you can do to get the highest quality product is what I would do. If that's do-it-yourself, then do that. If that's fiver, then do that. If it's hire a professional designer, then do that.

Just figure out what's the best/most affordable way to get the highest quality packaging for your product.

I do my own, for right now, most because I'm a control freak and it's very, very cheap if you can do your own, but I also enjoy it.

Hmm that's cool. How do you do it on your own? Photoshop? Flickr creative licenses? Stock photos?

 

[joanna]

But then the issue of money comes into play once more

To be honest *money* isn't as big of a problem, as *accounting* for it. Also you do need a designated person who manages such a colaboration from their account since I don't think any of the platforms allows for multiple owners of a book (other than tagging someone as author). I think what some author groups do is create a legal entity that manages all that stuff and the authors are then part of that entity. It's quite nicely explained here for anyone interested:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DHPQGN0/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

It's a good read overall, too.

Question: do you guys suggest getting a cover paid for on Fiverr ? Or is it better off learning how to do it on my own ?

Answer honestly a few questions:
- Have you got any design background or at least a decent eye for design?
- Have you got any skills already in using something like Photoshop or Gimp?
- Realistically what is your budget?

Fiverr is an option if you're completely broke and have no skill or intention to learn it - let's be honest, anyone can find spare five bucks. Though you should really, really check out the examples they provide, and preferably find someone who has examples you like, in your genre. There are a lot of gigs that frankly, even a beginner with a bit of taste could do better, but you can also find some good things there.

If you're kind of broke and say yes to 1) and maybe even 2) than you could try going the DIY route. (I really need to finish my non fiction book on this topic...). If you keep it simple you can do really great stuff on a budget.

If you have a bit of money to invest, and learning design is not something you want to spend time on (for fun or otherwise), absolutely go for a designer. There are pre-mades available at very affordable prices. Almost a flagship example of pre-mades: http://goonwrite.com/

Your cover is the first thing people see. Until you have a strong fanbase and/or spread like wildfire via word of mouth, let's not kid our selves - people do judge books by their covers. And if they don't like your's enough to click you blurb and writing really don't matter. A good title can do the trick too, but the cover is the main thing.

Stock photos - if doing erotica careful which stock site you choose. There's also the tricky part of "do not portray the model in an offensive manner" - it's vague as hell but if you keep your covers tasteful you *should* be OK (not a lawyer disclaimer goes here). Also most stock sites even for ebooks will have a copy amount limit on the cheaper licences (I use thinkstockphotos, so I know their's is 500k, and then you have to get the extended license).