Why Every Reader—and Every Strategy—Matters
Too many people assume authors make a fortune (or at least a pretty penny) every time someone buys their book. If only!
The reality is, for indie authors, publishing is both a passion and a business investment. While it offers full creative control and higher royalty percentages than traditional publishing, the margins are still thin—and the costs are real.
While this article is written primarily for first-time authors considering self-publishing — especially those working on nonfiction or faith-based books who are trying to understand realistic costs before spending money in the wrong order —readers will get some insight and understand the work that goes into creating content you consume.
Most confusion around publishing costs comes from not understanding spending order and budget tiers. This piece is meant to clarify both, so authors can make informed decisions without overspending too early.
Let’s take a look at what really happens behind the scenes.
eBooks
When an eBook sells for $5.99, the indie author earns about $3.70 from Amazon.com after distribution fees. Basically you collect 70% of royalties IF your book is priced no less than 2.99 and no higher than 9.99 USD.
Paperbacks
For a paperback priced at $15.99, the author takes home roughly $6.70 per sale.
Between printing costs and Amazon’s share, profit margins are slimmer than most readers imagine.
Kindle Unlimited Reads
Supposedly, every full read in Kindle Unlimited earns an indie author around $1. I say supposedly because frankly, that depends on your book’s length. I haven’t confirmed if this is the case, but years ago I learned that an author’s ebook in KU paid an author enrolled in it the equivalent of half a cent per page read.
It adds up slowly, and if you’re a novelist with many lengthy books that sell in high volume, you can make some serious scratch, but each reader still makes a difference.
Production Costs Add Up Fast
Before earning a single sale, indie authors often invest hundreds (or thousands) upfront. You can self-publish cheaply or expensively
The bigger risk is spending money too early on the wrong things.
Editing Is Not One Thing (And Treating It Like One Gets Expensive)
One of the most common mistakes first-time authors make is lumping everything under the word editing.
In reality, editing is not a single service — it’s a sequence of distinct stages, each solving a different problem. Skipping steps or doing them out of order often leads to paying twice.
Here’s a simplified breakdown:
Manuscript critique / readiness review
This is a diagnostic step, and, for full disclosure, one I often provide for a few hundred bucks depending on the shape your manuscript is currently in. The goal is to assess clarity, structure, argument flow, reader assumptions, and overall readiness before heavy editing begins. It helps identify what kind of editing is actually needed — and what issues should be addressed first.
Cheap alternative: You can usually find beta readers willing to do this for cheap or free, but not all readers’s opinions are created equal (especially friends and family who aren’t your target reader and may gloss over your blindspots or not know what will sell your book)
Developmental or content editing
This focuses on structure, argumentation, organization, and clarity at the chapter and section level. For nonfiction and apologetics, this is often where the most value (and cost) lies.
Line editing
This improves sentence-level clarity, style, and flow once the structure is sound. Line editing polishes what’s already working — it doesn’t fix underlying problems.
Citation checking and source work
For source-heavy books, this is often a separate cost category. It involves verifying claims, formatting citations correctly, and ensuring sources are represented accurately.
Proofreading
This is the final pass, after all substantive changes are completed. Proofreading catches typos and minor errors — it should be the last money you spend, not the first.
Authors get into trouble when they:
- pay for proofreading before structure is settled
- pay for line editing before arguments are clear
- pay for citations before knowing what content will change
Understanding these distinctions is often more important than knowing the exact dollar amounts.
In practice, budget tiers matter less than whether money is being spent at the right stage.
Editing before clarity, marketing before audience, proofreading before revision = wasted money. Then, only if and when you’re satisfied your manuscript is ready for the market you will have investments like:
- Cover design: $35–$400 (however, higher end designers don’t charge this low)
- eBook formatting: $60–$300
- Paperback formatting: $100–$400 (I do ebook and paperback formatting in Vellum for around $250, depending on how many images and footnotes you included), but for prolific authors, buying the software yourself might be a worthwhile investment if you intend on publishing multiple books
- Advertising & marketing: unpredictable, but often more than the book earns early on.
- Are you going to launch an author website of your own to promote yourself and your book via Google and NOT rely exclusively on social media and their ever-changing whimsy algorithms for visibility?
- Are you planning on building an email list to collect subscribers who visit your website or want to hear more?
That’s why every purchase, review, and recommendation matters—it helps authors get more visibility for their books, which can lead to more sales, which in turn, eventually helps their investment and fund the next book.
What People Usually Mean by “Budget Tiers”
When people ask about self-publishing budget tiers, they’re usually talking about levels of investment, not guarantees of success.
Here’s a realistic way to think about it:
Tier 1: Shoestring / Proof-of-Concept
$500–$1,500 total
- Minimal or partial editing
- DIY or low-cost cover design
- Basic formatting
- Little to no marketing spend
This tier is common for first-time authors who want to publish responsibly without major financial risk. The trade-off is polish and reach.
Tier 2: Professional / Credibility-Focused
$2,500–$6,000 total
- Professional editing (often developmental + line)
- Professional cover design
- Clean ebook and paperback formatting
- Selective marketing experiments
This tier is where most serious nonfiction and faith-based authors land. The goal isn’t mass sales — it’s producing a book that reflects well on the author and holds up to scrutiny.
Tier 3: Premium / Platform-Driven
$7,500+
- Multiple rounds of editing
- High-end design and branding
- Professional marketing strategy
- Audiobook production
This tier only makes sense when the author already has an audience or a clear downstream business model.
Important:
Spending more does not guarantee better results.
Spending out of order almost guarantees regret.
A note on apologetics and source-heavy Academic books
Books that rely heavily on sources, quotations, and argumentation often incur higher editorial costs — not because they’re poorly written, but because they carry higher accuracy and credibility expectations.
In these cases, clarity of argument and citation readiness matter more early on than surface polish.
Audiobooks
Audiobooks are their own ecosystem, with higher upfront costs and longer break-even timelines. For most first-time authors, they make sense after a book has proven demand, not before.
I’ve written more extensively about this elsewhere, but for budgeting purposes,
read more of my articles for considerations before producing an audiobook for your masterpiece.
What About Computer Generated Voices?
That said, the prices for hiring professional narrators are one of the reasons authors are tempted by AI-generated narration, which has exploded in visibility recently as a quick, inexpensive option. I explained in my article “How Using AI Narrators Could Backfire for Authors”, what looks like a shortcut can actually become a setback.
AI narration is improving, but it still can’t match a human narrator’s tone, nuance, and emotional depth—and listeners notice. A robotic voice can cheapen your brand and hurt sales across all formats. While it may save money upfront, poor listener engagement and weaker reviews can cost far more in the long run.
Oh, and Amazon LIMITS how high of a price an author can set for the virtual voice version of your audiobooks. As of writing this, I have anecdotal evidence and feedback from voracious audiobook listeners that many people prefer human narration, full stop. So that’s less interest in your cheaper-made virtual voiced book, and a lower price point, meaning the sales will still be lower than royalties on higher-priced audiobooks.
For authors serious about building credibility and lasting impact, human narration still remains the wiser investment for now.
The Bigger Picture: Building Beyond Book Sales
This is why many authors eventually think beyond royalties alone. If you’re thinking of writing a best-selling novel to fund your retirement, you may want to produce quite a few more books in a series first, and learn some marketing.
If you’re a non-fiction author, which is in my wheelhouse, your own book can be the best lead-generator for your coaching, or service business, or speaking engagements.
As an author coach, ghostwriter, and strategist, I help people not just publish books—but use those books as launchpads to grow their influence, attract opportunities, and create income streams that go far beyond Amazon payouts.
Your book can open doors to speaking engagements, coaching clients, online courses, and partnerships—if it’s positioned strategically.
That’s where real thought leadership begins.
A Note on AI-Assisted Manuscripts to “Save on Cost”
AI tools can improve language and flow, but they often mask deeper issues like logic gaps, weak transitions, repetition, and assumptions about the reader. As a result, AI-assisted manuscripts often feel more finished than they are.
This creates a common mistake: spending money polishing language before resolving structural or argumentative problems — which increases total cost rather than reducing it.
Used wisely, AI can save time. Used prematurely, it often increases downstream editing costs.
Why Every Reader Still Matters
Every purchase, every review, every page read still makes a tangible difference—it’s a vote of confidence that keeps an indie author’s work sustainable.
But long-term success comes from pairing your message with a clear strategy for visibility and impact.
Before you hire an editor or spend significant money to produce and launch your book, ask:
- Do I know WHO this book is for?
- Is the argument clear to someone outside my immediate circle?
- Do I know what kind of editor I actually need?
This is why conversations about publishing costs matter less than spending order and clarity of purpose.
A book can stand alone — or it can support a larger mission, message, or business — but those goals should shape how much is invested and when.
I work with authors at different stages of that process, but the principles above apply regardless of who you work with.
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