Thinking about taking the plunge into self-publishing

[mbj316]

Greetings everyone,

Thank you in advanced for any input! Due to the length of the post, I've bolded the main point/question.

After reading thread after thread on the self-publishing process, as well as many threads in which people claim to have had success through such means, I am considering taking the plunge myself.

While I consider myself to be a good writer, I know it will take me quite a while to produce a piece of work of my own. It has been years since I've done any sort of creative writing, let alone a piece of work long enough to warrant publishing. I also tend to be a perfectionist and often find myself rewriting the same section repeatedly, rewording the same thoughts and ideas, which is fine to an extent, but does prevent me from actually reaching completion.

Before I invest the time into writing a work of my own, I am considering hiring a freelancer through eLance to write the first piece of work for me to self-publish. If that were to yield good results, then that would provide reason to put in the time to do my own writing.

Thus far, I've received a number of proposals and have concluded that I'll probably spend $200-300 for an 8,000-10,000 word work of fiction. I'll do the editing and formatting myself and outsource the cover on Fiverr.

Can anyone provide insight into whether or not this would be worth it? I know $200-300 is not a substantial amount of money, but as a college student my active income is currently limited, so every dollar I invest will be noticed.

Thanks again,

MBJ316

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Digamma]

What are you trying to accomplish?
If you want to be a writer, why would you outsource?
And if you just want to hustle self publishing, why would you write yourself?

 

[mbj316]

What are you trying to accomplish?
If you want to be a writer, why would you outsource?
And if you just want to hustle self publishing, why would you write yourself?

For right now, my main goal would be using self-publishing as a source of income that would enable me to pursue other sources of income.

I enjoy writing, but would only take the time to do it myself if it proved to be worthwhile from a financial standpoint. I'm definitely not pursuing writing as a career, but would consider it for pleasure and as a supplement once I had the financial flexibility to do so. Right now, I have to focus on using my time for either academics or things that will improve my financial standing, which is why I'm hesitant to spend many hours writing myself, before knowing whether or not it's realistic to even expect sales and profits, given how many eBooks are out there.

For example, say I were to spend $300 to outsource a 8-10k word romance novel to a native English speaker. Would it be realistic to expect this to be profitable with a good cover and some marketing or are there simply too many works already out there, in which case I may be lucky to sell three copies?

 

[Lex DeVille]

Here's what you can expect.

1. $300 of disappointment because you haven't written in so long that it will be hard to judge the quality of the work.
2. More disappointment when you realize you spent way too much on that amount of writing.
3. More disappointment when you publish it and get hardly any sales.
4. More disappointment when you realize how long it's actually going to take to earn money.

If you need income now and aren't pursuing this as some sort of fastlane path, then get a part-time job. At least then you will stand a chance at actually making money. It doesn't matter if you're a native English speaker. The time it will take you to write enough stories, earn the market, and become profitable will be far longer than if you simply got a job at McDonalds making minimum wage. If you're not in it to win it, and by that I mean taking the time to learn the craft, and putting in hundreds of hours of effort figuring out the market, and how to reach them, then this is probably a waste of both your time and money.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

I am not a believer that you can edit your own work. Professional editing makes all of the difference between an amateur book and a professional, serious book that has the potential to sell en masse.

 

[Vigilante]

I interviewed an expert in self publishing and print on demand. He estimated that serious authors spend $5k on pre-production and $5k on marketing. Not that I think you have to spend that... (you don't) but that's what your competitors are spending.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I interviewed an expert in self publishing and print on demand. He estimated that serious authors spend $5k on pre-production and $5k on marketing. Not that I think you have to spend that... (you don't) but that's what your competitors are spending.

This ^

You either spend a lot of time or a lot of money (more than likely both).

Either way there's a price to be paid before you earn.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[mbj316]

Thanks for the input!

This is basically the information I was looking for. When reading the many success posts regarding self-publishing, including the process threads, it's difficult to determine what is and is not realistic. Throughout the self-publishing threads, many make it appear to be easy to quickly begin making money through self-publishing, including some who claim to have outsourced. Hence the reason I wanted to get reassurance one way or another before pursuing it.

 

[Lex DeVille]

At least you have the right mindset.

A lot of people come here, read a few threads and think this is the avenue for quick cash. In the outsourcing threads, they fail to look at the date the thread was started. The outsourcers earning a lot of money have been building their systems and constantly publishing books for a year or more.

The biggest self-pubbing success story was written by HeldForRansom who hasn't posted in god knows how long. What I do know is that I haven't seen him post in over a year, and it's been several years since he originally started his thread. Before he started the thread, it took him a long time and a lot of process to figure out what worked. So we're looking at 3+ years since he had success, + however long it took him to get to that point.

Now everybody is self-publishing and expecting to achieve the same, but the market has changed. Is it any wonder things aren't working out so well for them? 3-5 years ago self-publishing short stories was an awesome idea, but we're in the here and now, and we have to create new systems and processes to make it happen.

 

[mbj316]

At least you have the right mindset.

A lot of people come here, read a few threads and think this is the avenue for quick cash. In the outsourcing threads, they fail to look at the date the thread was started. The outsourcers earning a lot of money have been building their systems and constantly publishing books for a year or more.

The biggest self-pubbing success story was written by HeldForRansom who hasn't posted in god knows how long. What I do know is that I haven't seen him post in over a year, and it's been several years since he originally started his thread. Before he started the thread, it took him a long time and a lot of process to figure out what worked. So we're looking at 3+ years since he had success, + however long it took him to get to that point.

Now everybody is self-publishing and expecting to achieve the same, but the market has changed. Is it any wonder things aren't working out so well for them? 3-5 years ago self-publishing short stories was an awesome idea, but we're in the here and now, and we have to create new systems and processes to make it happen.

That's exactly why I posted this thread. It's rare that I start a thread of my own, since most topics and questions have been covered in-depth (i.e. use the search function) and I'm not going to waste anyones time by neglecting to do my own research. I've just found that, like you said, much of the information available in older threads is now out-of-date and not really applicable to todays market. The inspiration drawn from those threads is great, but it's difficult to accept that those opportunities may have come and gone. Now, I'm just struggling to identify the equivalent opportunities of today's market.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[EricZ]

You're basically asking the question "can anyone guarantee my success before I invest money?"
Short answer:
Your ROI will be directly proportional to the amount you invest in the MARKETING of your book (assuming that your book is good!)

So nobody is going to guarantee you that, except you of course, you can't avoid the hustle.

There are many marketing techniques, and it's actually the platform I'm developing to answer your question.

1.You can go for a purely "PULL" system where you invest massive time and money (Pareto as usual 20 minutes of writing = 80 minutes of marketing) in marketing your book. This is what Tim Ferriss did with the 4hwwk. Going for the bestseller straight out of the blocks.

2. Or you can go for a purely "PUSH" system where you crank out books (2- 3 per week!) and target a Genre.

3. Or you go for something in between, like Lindsay Buroker, where you market your books through your blogs and use a funnel, e.g. make 1 or 2 books free and the rest not.

In all of these techniques you VALIDATE your book first and make sure people actually want to buy it BEFORE you make it! Even in 2. the PUSH system they are indirectly validated - by targeting only profitable niches/genres.

Check out other authors here like Chickenhawk.

Also check out my site www.zbooks.co , I'm developing it just for guys like you!