In Self-Publishing, Money Talks

I read one of those rare honest posts on Reddit tonight, in which an aspiring author stated, "I have no money". Hey, hi! It seems we have a lot in common!

The majority of posts on the self-publishing sub-Reddit consist of, "I have a thousand dollars to spend on my book cover, and I was wondering..." or "Does anyone know of a good developmental editor I can hire for $1,500?" "I spent almost five hundred dollars on ads so far; however..."

Then there's me. My budget for my book cover is approximately $9.00 to buy an image from iStock; that is, if I can even find one that's appropriate. I haven't found one yet. Developmental editor? Well, that's me. I'm completely incompetent, but I work for free! As for marketing, it's going to be difficult for me to decide between a twenty-dollar ad on LemmeSellYourBook or a different twenty-dollar ad over at GullibleAuthors dot com. 

While I'm not above buying a lottery ticket, I won't and can't go into debt for a service that is even less of a sure thing. And thus, I'm dooming my novel before it's even published. No, a fancy cover doesn't guarantee success, but it will at least get eyes on the book. My homemade covers are "fine"; not sparkly, not intriguing. They're vanilla. The best thing I can say about them is that they exist.

Marketing simply must be done, if an author wants to compete with the approximately one zillion other self-published books on Amazon. I noted in a previous post that the only people who've read any of my books were ARC readers, and I managed to round up very few of those. But at least it cost me nothing to get them.

There's no built-in market for my books. While some can slap an awful romance novel up on Amazon, do no advertising and still rake in a bushel of cash, I don't have that luxury. 

I once went hog wild purchasing ads for one of my novellas ~ maybe it was Lies and Love; can't remember ~ and by "hog wild", I believe I spent a total of $120.00. I sold about six copies.

I also used to send out a newsletter. The service I used was free, so there was no risk involved, except for humiliation. I did manage to reap a lot of that. Even as I was composing my monthly "news", I cringed. I had no news. My newsletter was a debasing exercise. 

Publishing my current novel, if I ultimately decide to, will be...what's the word? Stupid? I hardly feel confident enough in it that I'm willing to even embrace any of the free options out there, such as ARC readers. Why even bother? To get some snarky review on Goodreads? 

I may publish it, because what else am I going to do with it? Store it on my hard drive? It's a wash either way. But I can't afford to pay for success.