The Cost of Launching A Book

I always enjoy it when folks peel back the curtain, and show what goes on behind the scenes. So I always try to do that with my projects, so that others can learn from my mistakes haha.

So here it is, what it will cost for me to break even on the production costs for Bringing Home the Rain:

Cover: 116.05

So I took a long time, really crawled all over Fiverr, and I found the perfect artist, doing work in the style I wanted. And it turned out perfectly! I am so happy with this cover, and it has gotten a ton of complements. (You can get it on a shirt too).

Moral: find someone doing exactly what you want already, and it will probably go easier.

Editing: 348.15

I was less happy with the editing. My issue stems from the fact that this book is very, very southern, and I hired a British editor. They did a good job...so long as it wasn't a 'southernism' shall we say. So I had to spend a lot of time 'fixing' some of the editing (in reality I was of course messing it up...but the south is weird).

Moral: find an editor that speaks your intended dialect. British English and Bama English are not the same thing.

Ads: 6.00

I had a 10 dollar facebook ad credit, so I paired it with 6 more dollars and ran a facebook ad. It achieved nothing that I can see. Waste of six bucks. Which considering I ran a facebook ad a few months back for an event with the Hilltop Howlers that did amazing...was a huge let down.

Moral: get gud Bob. Learn to craft ads better.

Total: 470.20

So this book cost me close to 500 bucks to get out into the world. I have sold 9 print copies and 46 ebook copies, which has netted me: 125.54. So I have a long way to go to break even. Now, to be fair, my dream is that this makes the bulk of it's money from a crap ton of Kindle Unlimited reads. But we aren't there yet.

All this said, my plan right now is to not put out book 2 until book 1 breaks even. Now, if we rock on to around Christmas and I haven't done so, then I will probably go ahead and start the ball rolling anyway. But the plan is to be money neutral for now, so that I work to becoming money positive (hopefully in a big way!).