How to Get the Money to Self-Publish a Quality Book

The biggest question I got from authors who wanted to work with my done-for-you independent publishing program is, “How can I get the money?” I’ve talked about this subject before, but thought it warranted more “out of the box” ideas. There are several things you can do to raise money to independently publish your book…

IndieGoGo.com


This is a site designed to raise money for creative projects. Everything from documentary films to illustrations for children’s books can be found on this site. You set a funding goal and they take a small percentage of any donations you get. Even if you don’t make your funding goal, you get all the money funded to you. Note that your project will have to undergo a review before they will post it for donations.

Kickstarter.com


I’ve talked about this site before as well. Like IndieGoGo, Kickstarter.com is a site designed to raise money for creative projects. It differs from IndieGoGo in that you set your funding goal, and if you don’t meet that funding goal you don’t get any money. This is not a bad thing. Because people who donate aren’t guaranteed their donation will go through unless you meet your funding goal, you’re more likely to get donations. There’s less risk to the donators.

Pre-sell


Another option is to set a pre-sale price on your book and sell advance copies. You collect the money before the book is published and send the buyers an autographed copy once it’s in print. Your pre-sale price can be equal or less to your targeted retail price of your book. I recommend if you do this that you include a bulk sale discount, where if people purchase five or more copies they will get free shipping. It’s not worth it to you to offer free shipping on one pre-sold book at a time, especially if your pre-sale price is lower than the actual retail price the book will be once published. Add about $2.00 shipping and if you’re in the USA, ship the book Media Mail to lower your shipping costs.

Sacrifice


Sacrifice doesn’t sound fun, but it’s a surefire way to save money to publish a quality book. Give up something you currently spend money on (like cable TV or coffee) and put that income toward your book project. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can save the money for a quality self-published book. Most people I know don’t even realize how much money they spend on non-necessities until they add them up. And temporarily living without a small luxury will be worth it once you achieve the dream of being a published author – and once you’re holding a book you will be proud of!

At the end of the day, it’s about how important it is to you to get your book published, and whether you desire to publish a quality book you can be proud to show off (that others will also be proud to promote for you) or whether you’re happy with a cut-and-paste template-style piece of you know what (hey, that could be your target market!). I have yet to meet someone who said they didn’t have the money for something they really wanted, who wasn’t able to find it when they are bound and determined to.