I launched My Bestselling Thriller Series With Just $35
Yes, I launched my series with just $35 but to set the record straight, here you are probably not going to find a manual on how to launch your books cheap. That’s not my intention.
FYI - Publishing a book is costly. Two to three grand for editing. Three hundred to a thousand dollars for cover design. In short, you need somewhere between twenty-five hundred to four thousand dollars ($2500-$4000) just to make your manuscript publication ready.
Another thing, this wasn't part of an experiment to launch my books at the minimum possible cost.
Instead, it was a necessity, because, unlike authors who are at the pinnacle of their careers and can easily spend 3–4 grand on just Facebook or Amazon ads, I rarely had $100 in spare cash. Forget advertising, I didn’t even have enough money to spend on book covers or editing.
There are authors earning 6-figures, have 15+ books to their name, and a huge marketing budget. And then there are authors who are at the beginning of their writing career with not even one published book to their name.
There’s a massive gap between the two. So, when I watch them talk in their podcasts, webinars, and videos on book launches, craft, marketing, etc., I used to wonder how in the hell I could spend so much money on my books when I was barely able to save anything from my day job.
So, instead of letting someone else, who was not in my position, decide for me or tell me what I should or should not do, I decided to ask readers if they would like to read my books. It also helped me to gauge the market and understand its dynamics.
How I did it is the story that I’ll touch on later but what I found was: in the eyes of the reader this massive income gap does not exist.
Readers do not care what you do or how you do it because when they pick up your book, they expect a certain level of quality from it.
Readers are not going to give my books an extra thumbs-up out of sympathy just because I scraped to publish my book and could not cough up $500 for my book cover or three grand for the editing.
In the eyes of a reader, every thumbnail-sized cover on an online bookstore page (Amazon, Apple, Google Play) is equivalent to any other and should deliver the same value as any other book they could purchase.
So, if I wanted to play ball in the big league, I had to look like I belonged there on the merit of my book and everything associated with it.
But does that mean I should go broke trying to publish just one book, which might or might not succeed?
What would you have done?
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About Chase Austin
I have spent 10+ years writing stories and marketing them. I’ve failed and succeeded over the years, and these are some of my tidbits on how I started my author business, perfected marketing, and more.
Here you’ll find resources to help you kick more ass with your words. No fluff, only actionable tips, and tricks if you are looking to make a living through writing, or just use it as a side hustle.
Things I like: Long walks, Reading about anything and everything, Telling stories and chess.
Visit me at www.thechaseaustin.com. Want to say hi, email me at contact@thechaseaustin.com.