Should You Go Broke To Publish Your Book?

Publishing a book is costly.

Two to three grand for editing.

Three hundred to a thousand dollars for cover design.

As for advertising, the sky was the limit on how much you could spend.

In short, you need somewhere between twenty-five hundred to four thousand dollars ($2500-$4000) just to make your manuscript publication-ready.

And no matter if even have that kind of money, that’s still a big ask for a story that might only sell 17 copies and make just 11.87 dollars in revenue.

So, should I go broke trying to publish just one book, which might or might not succeed?

What would you have done?

My answer is "absolutely not".

To digress a little, Warren Buffett, the famous investor, has two simple rules in his life:

Rule No. 1: Never lose money.

Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.

Here is my little twist to these rules:

Rule No. 1: Never lose money, but if you have no other option, then lose money smartly.

Rule No. 2: Recoup your losses as fast as you can.

Rule No. 3: Never forget rules No. 1 and 2.

I abide by these simple rules to weigh any decision that I must take regarding my author career.

Why?

Because any career needs investment—it could be in terms of money, time, or both.

You cannot recoup lost time, so you have to be extra smart with it.

You can recoup your money but the mistakes can be so costly that it can set you back by a year or two or maybe more.

As an author, tell me if you might have faced a similar dilemma about getting startup capital for your author journey.

To give you a perspective, 99.995% of authors never make it past their first book. In reality, a large number of authors will not break even until their sixth book is out. It’s the seventh or later book that will make them their first profit.

I believe these constraints and hard truths make my story unique born out of unique circumstances.