The Cost of Being an Author

The price of being an author can be expensive, but the price might be higher than some readers think.

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The idea for this blog post came shortly after I made the decision to not put my books up on FanFiction.net anymore as I wrote them.

One of the things that I have loved most about writing is inviting my readers along on the journey with me. Posting each chapter on FFN as it was written and getting feedback and comments has been so rewarding.

But there has also been a cost, as well.

Posting my stories in a raw format like that, with anyone able to comment as they wished, oepend the door to a lot of negativity. I did my best to ignore them, but some of them were truly cruel.

Not even about my writing, but about myself as well. “Go burn your book and then kill yourself for writing this trash” is just one example of dozens, if not hundreds, of comments I’ve deleted or ignored over the years.

Then there’s also the material cost as well.

I never realized how expensive it could be to publish a book until I went to do it.

Did you know that editors cost anywhere from half-a-cent to two cents per word? And that’s just for one type of editing?

It may not seem like much, but my books are around 100,000 words each. That means that my editor, who charged roughly one cent per word, cost about $1,000 per book – per type of edit.

Cover design, formatting, copyright fees, etc. all cost several hundred dollars as well.

Getting a good narrator to turn the story into an audiobook costs anywhere from $250-$300 per finished hour (which mens the length of the completed, edited audiobook). Most audiobooks are 9,300 words per hour. That means a book with 100,000 words is almost 11 hours long, which is $2,750 to $3,300 total to make it.

Before you know it, it costs about $5,000 to publish a 100,000 word book, or five cents per word. The standard page of a book is 250-300 pages. That means it cost about $1.50 per page to publish a book.

Do you know how much Kindle Unlimited pays per page read?

Less than half a penny.

That’s $0.005 per page, when it cost me $1.50 per page to publish.

I spent 300 times more to publish the book than I earn per page read.

I need 300 people to read my book in its entirety to break even.

That doesn’t count paying myself for the hundreds (if not thousands) of hours spent writing and proofreading and newsletters and promoting (TikTok, Facebook, etc).

I am not saying all of this for any other reason than this: writing isn’t about the money, but publishing is.

And it’s with all of this in mind that I make the announcement that I won’t be putting my books up for free anywhere anymore. Not on FFN, or AHA, or even here on my blog.

Because there’s a physical cost to writing. And there’s also an emotional and mental cost as well.

And as much as it breaks my heart to not be able to offer my books for free as I write them, the overwhelming negativity, when coupled with the monetary loss, that comes from freely sharing my stories is more than I can afford.

Especially when twice now, Amazon has threatened to take down my books and forfeit all of my earnings because they’ve found the first few chapters on FFN for free.

I know this will be very disappointing for some of you. I am truly grateful to all who have supported me along this journey, and I’m excited to continue sharing my stories.

I hope that y’all can understand where I’m coming from. ❤️