Financing My Book
I've gotten an increased amount of e-mails and Facebook messages from Aspiring Authors. Ninety percent of those messages are questions starting off with “I do not have any money or an income, but I want to get my book published. How can I go about getting my book published?”
Before I provide my answers, here are some things to consider:
Things To Consider:
- Being a writer takes money, time, and sacrifice. You need money for a good editor, and marketing. And if you want graphic designs done professionally for your book cover, you need money. You also SHOULD have a website, and to have one built professionally, you need money.
- Writing/Being an Author is not easy work. Writing is a business, and just like any other company, you have to invest in the company to build it from scratch in order to get it to where you want it to be.
- Writing does not make you rich instantly. You get back what you put into it. If you choose not to invest into writing a good book or books, and decide to publish mediocre materials, then your return on investments will be mediocre. If you’re not doing it for the passion of writing, and only in it to make money, you will run into major road blocks.
- Being a Writer, you have to do RESEARCH and more RESEARCH!
Now that I’ve gotten the above items out of the way, let’s identify some ways you can finance your book.
Steps to Financing Your Book
Option One: Start putting away at least $25 per paycheck into a savings account. DO NOT consider it as a back-up for any emergencies, this is the account you will use to continue depositing $25 per paycheck (or more, if you can afford it) which is to be used to fund your book. Though this option may take a long time to accumulate if you’re just starting off with $25 per paycheck, it is still worth looking into. During the time that you are saving to fund your book, you can research companies that offer website development, graphic designs for book covers, editing companies, publishing companies, and marketing companies/marketing options, and public relations companies to obtain a pricing sheet. From the pricing sheet, you will be able to gauge how much each service will cost you—this will also help to serve as a motivation for you to want to put more money aside from each paycheck.
Option Two: Open a secure credit card with a credit union (join one if you are not already signed up with one). With the secure credit card, you can deposit funds onto the card to be used at a later date. DO NOT consider it as an emergency funding account. Consider it an account to fund your writing career.
Option Three: Open a Certificate of Deposit (CD) account with a credit union. With a CD, you can open the account with a set amount to earn a set amount of interest with the knowledge that the funds will not be accessible for 6 months, 12 months, or 2 years, etc. Check with each financial institution to see which options they have available. This is a guarantee way to know that you will not attempt to use the funds you are putting away to fund your writing career.
Option Four: (My least recommended). If you are set-up for a 401K, your employer may offer an option to take a loan from the 401K. Keep in mind, if you leave that job and refuse the pay the loan back, it will be considered a withdrawal and the IRS will impose a hefty tax penalty. The IRS impose hefty tax penalties on withdrawals from 401K’s because the 401K accounts or for retirement, and when you withdraw before your retirement age, the IRS steps in to impose that hefty penalty.
Option Five: (the last one, and my second least recommended). Open a credit card with enough to cover what you expect to pay in cost for your book cover designs, website, editing, publishing, marketing, book tours, book signings, and book giveaways and so on. If you choose this option, ensure that you are using the credit card solely for the book purpose; it helps to have everything organized when you go to file taxes at the end of the year.
Hope this helps. If you wish to contact me, please use either of the below options. Thank you for reading.
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Labels: Aspiring Authors, Authors, Books, Indie Author, Publishing, Self-Publishing, Traditional Publishing, Writing
