I want to, but money is a huge deal for me.
Hiring an editor, book cover designer, and more is pricey.
That is crazy for me to know people are paying hundreds to thousands for self-publishing.
Yikes. But why is it pricey though?
6 Likes
@Akje
@alenatenjo
@TheTigerWriter
@CoffeebyNight
@copyedit
@J.L.O
@JojoDahlia
@Xelyn_Craft
@Haddes97
@SecretDurham
The market charges as much as people are willing to pay, so evidently a lot of people can afford to pay those prices. Damned if I know where they get it, though. I cut corners by doing whatever I can myself, like making my own book covers. So many of my favorite traditionally published books have terrible covers, so it’s something I’m willing to risk. ÂŻ\_(ď˘)_/ÂŻ
3 Likes
I guess I can answer this 
Because we don’t magic the cover out of thin air and we aren’t formatting or editing at the speed of light. We have bills to pay, like everyone else. You can find budget options from people who provide services as a hobby or in countries with lower cost of living. I’m currently working through developmental edits on a 10k word short, and it’s taking me a while to complete, for example. Aside from time, my business costs include everything from stock assets, fonts, software subscriptions, my PC… yadayada
You can DIY your way through self-publishing, though. Just try your best. The results won’t be as clean as if you hired someone to do it all, but there’s nothing to say you can’t publish with a homemade cover and homemade edits. 
6 Likes
Given that most who make it to Tradpublishing are on their 7th book when they finally land, that’s 6 books that weren’t up to snuff.
If we sit there and talk about how bad an indie novel (specifically self-pub) is, we could wait until we see a few of them out, by the same author, to give them as much leeway as possible.
2 Likes
Everything is expensive these days, it’s just part of life. Unfortunately, even making money costs money in this economy. I’m lucky I’m almost done getting my graphic design certificate and plan on making book covers for a living, so I can make my own covers, and hopefully make money by making them for other people too and get some networking in while also saving up for other costs of publishing, but I also hope to get in with a traditional publisher rather than self publish if possible. I don’t know enough about the process at this point though, so I’m just going to focus on getting through my third draft and hope that through that networking, I can find out more.
2 Likes
CoffeebyNight covered it pretty well; it’s because we’re paying professionals to give us professional work. When you tradpublish the publishing house pays those professionals for you, but when you selfpub you have to do everything yourself and that includes footing the bill.
There’s nothing wrong with doing the work yourself but it’s probably going to look, yaknow, like you did it yourself. And you have to be super mindful of stuff like copyright and licensing when it comes to fonts and images.
Also I wouldn’t recommend forgoing an editor even if it’s costly, just save up. I read a lot of selfpub books… I spend a lot of time looking at grammar that would get a failing mark in middle school. Do it for your future audience, pls.
4 Likes
Because they gotta make their money somehow sigh
3 Likes
Thanks for answering guys!
I shall tackle each comment later.
Traditonal Publishing these days isn’t easy on your wallet, either, because you’ll have to hire editors, etc. because books aren’t as profitable as they used to be.
2 Likes
I’m not sure how this relates to my comment tbh haha. Self-pub is a bit strange given that it’s more than possible to become a hit on your very first project - it isn’t common, but when people treat it like a business, have an audience to spring off of already, the stars can align. Then you have others who go about it a different way. I’m lucky in that I can do my own cover, formatting and edits, but I also don’t have a singular penname/genre that’s making me money. I don’t like having all my eggs in one basket 
My cost to publish a book is zero (a day or two of my time, maybe a few weeks, plus pre-existing business expenses).
Plenty of authors do wait until they’ve got a few out before they start investing - plenty of others don’t. It just depends completely on the author’s current financial state, their priorities etc.
2 Likes
Unfortunately, my best bet would be traditional publishing. It sucks but hey its free?
2 Likes
What if you lack money to even self publish, but want to in hindsight?
It hard wanting to be a published author these days.
2 Likes
You don’t need money to self pub. You just have to try your best with the cover (there are templates, guides, courses, everything), the editing (there are tools available to help, I spoke with you about Prowritingaid before - I use this on my own edits), and the formatting (the formatting can be the simplest part. I actually use Kindle’s own formatting software for my shorts because I don’t need them to be fancy. It takes maybe 1 minute to format).
All of the above things are important - the cover is your only real marketing asset on storefronts, and a poorly edited project will cause bad reviews. But, if you take your time, maybe spend time learning how to do those, it won’t be so bad - and you can invest later.
3 Likes
I can do some editing and rewriting on my own.
Though finding a beta reader is crucial for me.
It related to:
That’s less of an issue, the more experience a writer has with their own editing (although fresh eyes are still generally better).
And something not even in here:
Threads having argument after argument about people refusing to get anything but Tradpublishing when they buy books because of ANY lowering of quality.
If an author has been doing this for a while, they’re going to improve, and the number of errors I see in Tradpublishing doesn’t make it sacrosant in the first place.
And just the statistics of if the first book Tradpublished is the 7th book, it’s coming with a backlog of practice a 1st book Selfpublished may not have had.
SO, some bit of a tangent off of 1 statement.
3 Likes
I suck at editing though. Aw, man!
I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t relatively suck at first. It’s part of practice.
1 Like
I think my “preferred” way of editing is rewriting then edit as I write.
That is the only way I believe I can pull it off to work in my favor.