I self-pubbed my first story a few years ago. Although through an intermediary 'publisher' it wasn't expensive, though bear in mind the amount of work you'll need to do on the manuscript can be proportionate to the cost.
For example, I organised all my own editing (horrible job), formatting (to the publisher's guidelines), blurb and cover art. I ended up with a very nice quality 9x6 glossy cover paperback with decent quality paper, ISBN and distribution in POD so there's no buying of large amounts of stock to get the price-per-copy down.
Providers vary in what services they include so beware, and others sell them at extortionate prices so double-beware of that.
I was very happy with what I got and never expected to make money, which at around 92p a copy is more than trad pub authors, though with nothing like their sales volume. I wish ;)
Since with this deal I retained all rights (something else you need to be careful of) I did the ebook version myself. It's fairly straightforward f you follow Kindle and Smashwords guidelines, though they are different, and unlike a print book you can revise your text at any time. I've managed to avoid that so far.
Jonathon, well done on all the hard work.
I may well follow your route if I ever finish editing my manuscript.
I self-pubbed my first story a few years ago. Although through an intermediary 'publisher' it wasn't expensive, though bear in mind the amount of work you'll need to do on the manuscript can be proportionate to the cost.
For example, I organised all my own editing (horrible job), formatting (to the publisher's guidelines), blurb and cover art. I ended up with a very nice quality 9x6 glossy cover paperback with decent quality paper, ISBN and distribution in POD so there's no buying of large amounts of stock to get the price-per-copy down.
Providers vary in what services they include so beware, and others sell them at extortionate prices so double-beware of that.
I was very happy with what I got and never expected to make money, which at around 92p a copy is more than trad pub authors, though with nothing like their sales volume. I wish ;)
Since with this deal I retained all rights (something else you need to be careful of) I did the ebook version myself. It's fairly straightforward f you follow Kindle and Smashwords guidelines, though they are different, and unlike a print book you can revise your text at any time. I've managed to avoid that so far.
Best of luck! :)
Thank you again Simon. :) as always you help me allot! :p