Do You Know The Costs of Writing A Book

How Important is Money when you’re writing a book?  It may seem like a question where a person can argue there isn’t a ‘cost’ to writing a novel or becoming a blogger or anything of the sort.  Writers are a pretty inexpensive bunch, according to many we sit in front of a computer and type.  To most we simply write, usually on a laptop and blog about writing, and possibly earn some income.

What they don’t expect, and what many new writers don’t think of is the actual costs of writing a book.

1) The brand new laptop and printer you had to buy- on credit: Most writers need to upgrade their laptops at some point, but really most “upgrade” each year.  This in and of itself is a need.  There are some established authors who still write on older model computers and are pleased with the results.

The most famous of these writers is George R. R. Martin who still uses and old DOS machine to write with.  If a well known author can write using older machines- this is saying something about needing a new computer every year.

2) Traditional Publishers:  Some have big budgets yes, but these are reserved for the more “big money makers” to spend. As a new writer, without a successful track record behind you, will you get a lot of said budget or will things be out of pocket?

3) Self-Publishing: This does cost money, but publishing aspect itself is inexpensive, it is the act of promotion that is expensive with self-publishing.  However, if you know your expenses, or publish with a company such as Amazon’s CreateSpace, you can save a lot of extra expenses.

4) Little extras: Did you really need that lunch date with your friends to talk about your book, when you could have been at home writing your book?  Was it about your book or about  

Did you need to buy twenty “how to improve your writing” books when one or two will do, or were you hoping that one of them would tell you something the others weren’t going to do? 

These little extra expenses can hit you hard if you are just beginning your career.

5) Writing Classes:  This one is not a “small” expense but it is one that can really take money out of you.  If you take a course a single course it might cost anywhere between $100 to upwards of $750 dollars- depending on time and the size and length of the class.

Now say you get a lot of “suggestions” on improving the work you submit, most of the time, you will do one of two things, you will take another course to improve, or you will go and buy more books to help you improve.   Either way, writing classes can become a big expense if you are not prepared to be logical about the expenses.

Money is important to your writing, and you can make money writing, but the point is that you need to know that small costs that you do not consider can become big costs.  If you don’t research your work, and where you write, you can find your costs of writing a book won’t cover the actual money you get back in the style of royalties.