Average total cost of preparing an 85000 word YA novel for self publishing on KDP

[PADDY]

Would anybody care to estimate or give details from their own experience of the average cost of getting a professional editor, and book designer, and typesetting an 85000-word YA Urban Fantasy novel that I am considering self-publishing on KDP?
First novel and limited income.
What is the least amount I could get away with spending on preparation? I realize the huge problems of promoting and selling a new novel and the likelihood of very low sales, but I expect a correspondingly low or nil success rate for the queries I have sent to agents, even though I have devoted a large amount of time to create the best possible synopsis, blurb and cover letter that I can.

 

[Brian G Turner]

For an editor, do you mean just a line editor? Because if you want to make your work the best it can be a developmental editor can be invaluable, though expect you may need to do some major rewrites and cutting to your work, but it will be better for it.

If you're self-publishing through KDP you don't need any other professional services - you basically upload a Word file with a contents table, and you can buy good off-the-shelf book covers for around $50.

Self-publishing through KDP is super-easy, and any technicalities you may not be familiar with are easy to learn (ie, setting up a contents table).

 

[The Judge]

I'm not sure what, if any, feedback you've had on your work. If that's little or none, then before taking the plunge into self-publishing, or sending out to any more agents etc, what I'd suggest is you put up the first 800 or so words of your novel in our Critiques section and see what reaction you get here. With the best will in the world, it's hard to get the perfect opening -- or anything else -- when working on one's own without help from others. If that feedback is favourable, perhaps see if anyone here is willing to beta read the whole book (there's a specific thread for that) then put up the synopsis etc in Critiques and get help with those difficult bits.

You can't post a thread in Critiques quite yet, though, as you need to have at least 30 counted posts to do that -- you're up to 19 at the moment, so it shouldn't take you too long. Venture out into a few more threads other members have started, and join in discussions here in the writing section or in the books sub-forums. Indeed, perhaps have a look at what is there in Critiques and see if you can offer thoughts on the work other members have put up.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Depends how much you spend on the various elements…. I tend to spend around £1300 but it can vary a fair bit- mine tend to be short books

 

[ColGray]

If you wrote it in Word, or can put it in Word, using Styles makes the TOC, linking and export through Kindle Create and KDP trivially easy. And if you don't know Styles, Youtube should be able to teach you just about everything in a short amount of time --and, legit, using styles revolutionizes Word's utility for browsing, organizing, moving things around, editing, etc.

About a year ago I worked with an editor for the first half of a book and she was great -- excellent feedback, comments and questions. Worth noting that editing can include line and copy editing (i.e. grammatical mistakes, spelling, etc.) but the biggest utility I got was from the questions and comments on scenes, acts and arcs. Things like: This is unclear, This scene is too long, Develop this more, etc.

Her rate was .006/word for 100k words, but I know she's on Reedsy now and i think her rate might have changed.

If you're unfamiliar with the process of finding an editor, and what they will and won't do, Reedsy is a good (free) place to learn.

 

[michellechastaine]

I spend about $1500 to $2000 on each book, including editor, cover designer, and layout designer. My editor does both developmental and line/copy edits in two sessions. I need a dev editor, because I often write out of order and rearrange sections. I use designers off Fiverr, but I spent a lot of time looking at the top sellers and their styles. My cover designer is new, as I am recovering earlier books in the series (genre shifted in style a bit). The layout designer I use is fabulous, and I'd be happy to recommend him.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Much as others have said above.
I should point out that according to statistics, a very small proportion of self-published titles make significant sales, certainly not enough to earn back £1000 or so spent on editing and design services. So if you go ahead, you need to be confident in your marketing plan, or be prepared to write off the whole sum you have invested. If you can get beta reads of your book, are confident to self-edit, and can make up your own cover from a free-to-use stock image, it is not essential to spend any money at all. But no doubt the odds for success should be improved if you engage professional services.

Note that if you are going for ebook only, the Kindle process largely formats the book for you, and you only have to design the front of the cover. For a paperback, somebody has to design the exact look and layout of the pages, and the font, etc, and the whole of a wrap-around cover.

If you are hoping to make your fortune, you should choose a different hobby. I am acquainted with the modestly successful historical detective fiction author TG Campbell, and I don't think she is making much, if any, money after covering the cost of professional services, travelling to book fairs, short videos, etc.

Note that if you are wavering between the trad. publishing route and self-publishing, you should try the former first. Once you have proved that your book doesn't sell, the chances of interesting a publisher are likely to be nil.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

Well, the least would be 0 as you don't necessarily have to hire out for anything. It's very possible to just self-edit or, if you're not confident in your own editing skills yet, then even just having friends/family read over it can be a help. Formatting can also be done yourself though you may need to get some software for it (I'd recommend Atticus for ebook formatting and Affinity Publisher for paperback; Atticus can do paperback formatting too, it's just more limited). The one area you may want to consider hiring out for though is for the book cover. Again, it's entirely possible to do this yourself if you have the art/design skills (I have an art degree and am a freelance artist/cover designer so I just paint my own covers), but since your book cover is one of your most important marketing tools it's usually where you'll want to put your money unless you are confident in your own skillset.

If you want/need to keep your costs as low as possible, then I'd recommend taking a good hard look at what you are the most or least confident in doing on your own and consider who you may know personally that is good at an area you are weaker in and see if they are willing to help. I've gotten fairly confident in my own self-editing, but I still hand it off to a family member that I know I can trust to give me honest feedback on story issues and to catch any line-edit issues I might miss. Everything else though, I do myself. I did, however, hire out for formatting for my first book, but now I have to software to do that myself too.

Also, the lovely thing about self-publishing is that you can always go back and fix things you didn't catch later. Yes, you ideally want it to be as polished as possible upon release, but it's not necessarily a death sentence for the book if it isn't. Especially since you're not likely to get a lot of notice until you have a body of work out there. So, as you write and publish more, be prepared to give another look over earlier stuff and polish it up a bit more and then update the book as needed.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Also, the lovely thing about self-publishing is that you can always go back and fix things you didn't catch later. Yes, you ideally want it to be as polished as possible upon release, but it's not necessarily a death sentence for the book if it isn't. Especially since you're not likely to get a lot of notice until you have a body of work out there. So, as you write and publish more, be prepared to give another look over earlier stuff and polish it up a bit more and then update the book as needed.

Totally agreed.