During our time putting together our first self-published travel book, The Long-Term Traveler's Guide, we had to spend a lot of time learning about the self-publishing process and the travel book industry in general. In order to save future author's time and money, this ten-part Writing a Travel Book series was born!
The following is a quick list of the entries into this special feature. To learn more about our book launch and other information associated, please check out the Travel Book sidebar on this site.
Part 1 - Finding a Niche and Writing
Part 2 - Editing and Formatting
Part 3 - Evolution of a Cover Design
Part 4 - Digital Packages and Special Features
Part 5 - Developing a Website for Sales
Part 6 - Distribution Companies
Part 7 - Pricing Development and Launch
Part 8 - Affiliate Sales Programs and Tips to Succeed
Part 9 - The Cost of Writing and Sales Summary
Part 10 - Final Thoughts
Writing a Travel Book Part 9 - The Cost of Writing and Sales Summary
The costs associate with writing a travel book represents a significant investment for those looking to take the leap into self-publishing, as time spent writing will not be your only requirement to release the book. While it is true that putting together a quick e-book may only require a very modest financial investment, producing a full-fledged book with hopes of obtaining a book deal takes requires a bit more and can wind up being quite expensive.
As this series on Writing a Travel Book draws to a close, I wanted to give my unfiltered costs and profits associated with releasing The Long-Term Traveler's Guide. Hopefully, this post will give the true financial aspect of self-publishing for all those looking to release their own book in the future on both a time and cost basis. It may be a significant investment in both aspects, but it has been a great experience for us the whole way through.
For the purposes of this post, "Time" is defined as the moment of starting the task to the moment of completing the task, independent of the other tasks on this list and may only have required a few hours per week or few hours per day at its peak. Some aspects of producing this book ran concurrently. Finally, although I would love to value my time in a monetary increment, for the purpose of this post "Cost" only includes billable items that I paid for out of pocket in order to release the guide, otherwise this book would be very, very expensive.
Cost Summary for The Long-Term Traveler's Guide
Writing the Book
Time: ~8 months
Cost: $0
Editing the Book
Time: ~4 months
Cost: $200 in the form of a very nice dinner for my fiancee and myself to celebrate.
Website
Time: ~1 month
Cost: ~$50 to setup a domain name and host, $100 to purchase Thesis theme for design.
Design of the Book Cover
Time: ~3 months
Cost: $380 for 8 hours of work for front and back design, three options per side, and a print-ready delivery
Preparation for Printed Sales
Time: ~1 month
Cost: $50 for product activation on ClickBank, $225 to purchase two ISBNs, $45 to order two rounds of proofs with rush shipping, and $50 to register the book with the US Copyright Office.
Preparation for Digital Sales
Time: ~1 week
Cost: $5/month for delivery services with e-Junkie
Marketing Efforts
Time: On-Going - a few hours per week
Cost (Thus Far): $210 to order 40 copies and $60 for distribution of printed copies to supporters, key individuals in the travel market, and potential publishers as well as all associated shipping costs.
Total Cost to Self-Publish a Travel Book: $1,370
To put this number in perspective, I spent about $200 less than this to spend 4 weeks in China in 2010 excluding transportation to get in and out of the country. This figure is in-line with many others who have self-published a book as the common rate is at least $1,000 for comparable efforts. I am very excited to say that I am not an outlier in this.
Sales Summary for The Long-Term Traveler's Guide
Although the book has only been available for about 75 days, and our media campaign is just beginning, we have to consider sales to put the full series and writing process into perspective. The first number to consider? How many do you have to sell before you break even.
For us to breakeven with the book and recover $1,370, this means that we have to sell:
- 200 copies of the printed book,
- or 60 copies of the digital package (120 if sold through affiliates),
- or 225 copies of the Kindle/Nook edition,
- or some combination of the above;
- plus an additional 3 copies of the digital package per year to cover the reoccurring costs with e-Junkie.
Lets take a look at how we are doing to date:
Total Printed Books Sold to Date: 18
Total Kindle/Nook/iPad Books Sold to Date: 14
Total Digital Packages Sold to Date: 8
Total Blog Sponsored Contests for the Guide: 3 plus 1 scheduled in the near future
Total Number of Free Copies Distributed: 16
Total Affiliate Commissions Paid to Date: $22
and finally, the most important figure...
Total Revenue Earned to Date: $400
Revenue Earned and all sales data spans from launch in February 2012 until publishing of this post at the end of April 2012, or approximately 75 days of sales. The guide was released for Kindle approximately two weeks after launch, for Nook approximately six weeks after launch, and for iPad approximately 10 weeks after launch (only a few days before this post went live). As there has been significant interest in reader formats, especially iPad, we expect this figure to rise significantly in the near future.
Sales Breakdown by Month
To give a graphical representation of how The Long-Term Traveler's Guide is doing, please refer to the following charts. The first chart plots the relative sales of each format up until the last update of this post. The second chart plots revenue made on the book. It may seem low to only sell a few copies per week, but our major media campaign is just about to begin, and the numbers will continue to grow from there.
Regardless of how you wish to put sales, we are happy. To put it simply, I wrote The Long-Term Traveler's Guide as a labor of love to help encourage people to get out and see the world in a manner they are most comfortable with. Writing a book was on my bucket list, and it is a great feeling to say that I completed the task with amazing success.
My cost of $1,370 is on par with other reports that self-publishing authors have published on the web, and its always good to not be an outlier. While this is quite a sizable amount of money, we project that we will break even on costs after about one year of sales or less and are working to secure a book deal within that same period of time. Your future book may come in significantly under this cost, or may exceed the cost depending on a number of factors. Ultimately your payback will be based on the amount of effort you put into your book, and no monetary figures can give an accurate reflection on producing something that reflects your greatest passion.
Next stop... book deal? The search begins.
Write until it hurts, edit until your eyes bleed, be happy with your final product, promote it with intensity, and the world will take care of you in return.
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Thank you for your support and happy travels!
