The 10 Major Steps I Took to Self-Publish my Book with the Expenses I Incurred

If you’re thinking of writing and publishing your own book, be prepared for a challenge. Here are the ten major steps I took, along with the expenses I paid, to publish my book Seeing the Invisible God.

1. Wrote the book. In total, it took about seven months, but that was spread out over six years.
2. Had it professionally edited – $1140. The cost depends on the type of editing you need. Also, my editor was relatively inexpensive – $25 per hour. But she was recommended by a professional author I met at a writers conference, and I know that she worked on his books. Make sure to get your book edited by a professional with experience. There are so many grammar and punctuation rules so you need someone with expertise to check your work. If you need substantial editing, it will probably cost a lot more. If you want to brush up on the rules of writing, see The Chicago Manual of Style.
3. Had the cover designed and created – $262.50. This involved about 60 back and forth emails on details of the design and took about two months to finalize. Fortunately, I was working with a friend, and we agreed on a price per hour from the start.
4. Purchased Scrivener – $39. Scrivener is a writing program that enables you to create an e-book, such as a Kindle version. It sells for $45, but I found a discount code online. Warning: Scrivener has a ton of settings, so it takes time to learn. You can purchase tutorials to help you learn Scrivener, but I just struggled along. I did, however, write to Scrivener a couple of times, and received helpful and timely responses to my questions.
5. Purchased Word for Mac – $109.99. I was trying to avoid purchasing this, but in the end, I gave in and I’m glad I did. Of course, if you already have Word or are comfortable with another word processing program, you can skip this step.
6. Purchased an interior design template from bookdesigntemplates.com – $47. I bought the leadership template with the e-book template. There are many details to consider with interior design, such as margins, headers, page numbers, font, and font size. How will you decide on all of those details? (Actually, you will need to decide on the size of your book first. Measure books you have and then go from there. I chose 8.5 in. x 5.5 in.) And when you decide, do you know how to set up everything properly? The template helped ease the process dramatically.
7. Purchased an ISBN from bowker – $125. You don’t have to purchase your own ISBN, but doing so gives you more freedom to sell your book in other places. If you don’t want your own ISBN, you can get one at no cost from CreateSpace, but then you can only sell your book on Amazon. Here’s a breakdown of your ISBN options.
8. Uploaded my e-book that I created with Scrivener, along with the .tif cover file to Amazon Kindle Direct then waited for it to be approved, which took about 6-8 hours.
9. Uploaded my paperback version with my .pdf cover file to CreateSpace then waited for it to be approved, which took about 12-15 hours. CreateSpace is Amazon’s print on demand service so if you use them, you don’t have to stock physical books to sell. The books will be printed when they are ordered. (Since this post was written CreateSpace has merged with Amazon Kindle Direct so you only need an AKD account for both e-books and paperbacks.)
10. After the paperback was approved, I purchased a few paperback proof copies from CreateSpace – $86.96. This is where I messed up a little. You can approve your book at no cost by viewing the PDF or by using the digital viewer. But if you really care about the finished product, you’ll want to see exactly what your customers will be seeing so I recommend ordering a proof copy. Also, studies have shown that we can’t proofread as well digitally as we can on paper. And finally, colors don’t look exactly the same on screen as they do on paper. But why did I purchase a few proof copies? Because I kept changing things. Every time I picked up the book and read something, I wanted to make a change or two. My editor told me that would happen. I don’t know if authors are ever 100% happy with everything in their books. I also learned that one editor is not enough. Most professionally published books have gone through a team of editors. (If you self publish, who will be your team of editors?) I should have had my wife read every word before publishing and, in the end, that’s what ended up happening. My mistake cost me about $70.

Those are the major steps I took and the grand total was $1723.49.

There are a few more things you will need to do that I didn’t mention:

• convert your document file to an e-book on Scrivener,
• write a product description,
• choose the cover finish—glossy or matte, and the paper color—white or cream. Cream paper is slightly thicker and mostly used for fiction, while white is mostly used for non-fiction.

I only talked about Amazon. You can also publish your book with Barnes & Noble and other places. If you want your book in bookstores, you will probably need to create an account with IngramSpark. As you can see, if you decide to self publish, there are many things to consider. Only a few people have written and published, so it’s not going to be easy, but it is possible.

Near the end of the process, I began talking with an acquisitions editor at a publishing house because my editor thought my book should be traditionally published. But I had already spent so much money and time with the self-publishing process that it didn’t make sense to revert to the traditional model. Traditional publishers are responsible for several rounds of editing (very expensive if you self publish), cover design, interior layout, ISBN, and they help with marketing. But I had already done most of those things and paid for them. Perhaps the publisher would have reimbursed me for the costs I had incurred, but I wasn’t sure and I had come so far on the self-publishing track.

But if the final step proves to be too much of a challenge, I may reconsider.

What’s the final step?

Marketing. That will undoubtedly include more expenses and it may be the biggest challenge of all.

Les Bridgeman

After graduating from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I served as a high school Bible teacher in Asia. I enjoy traveling, writing, and playing the drums. For a deep dive into church history and the character of God, see my book Surprised by Hell.