Welcome to your next step of the Self Publishing Mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of Young Adult Books about Magic, Myths and Monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ad courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mastering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello, and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors Podcast.

I'm Samantha Cummings, here with my co-host, Matilda Swift, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us and still a long way to go towards the quit-the-day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our Mastery Through Missteps journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way, and this week's topic is self-publishing on a shoestring.

Before that, what are your whims and twinges of the week?

Oh, I mean, we were meant to record yesterday, but I messaged most of the way through the day to say, can we just put it off a day?

Because I don't feel very windful.

I don't know my usual winning self.

And I'm so glad that we did, because I just had...

I was absolutely wiped last week.

I worked so hard to get my book into the editor, and I did it by like two in the morning on the deadline night.

And I really think the book is going to need another like, like few more bits of polishing than I would like when it comes back from the editor.

So I was feeling absolutely exhausted.

I had other things to do last week as well after that was in, and I was just like pulled very thin.

So we put it off for a day.

I spent all of yesterday reading, like curled up my little reading nook, surrounded by beautiful little fairy lights, drinking tea, in cushions, listening to music, delightful.

And I would just feel a thousand percent better.

So it was such a nice perspective.

It was also helped by the fact that yesterday got the world's best certified world's best review.

Never.

Has anyone received a better review than this.

So delightful if I put this out next.

It was just like, effusive without sounding fake.

Like it just was a long, genuinely nice review.

And I was like, Oh my God, I am good.

I am really good.

So it was so nice.

I got that yesterday evening.

I had a meet this morning about a secret, can't tell you quite yet, side project that went really well as well, but will be revealed soon.

And last week, I had set my goal that I wanted to have 100 pre-orders, and I am currently on...

drumroll please...

a hundred and...

So I set a target and then just reached it.

I almost didn't reach it because I forgot that I was going to have to turn the ad off midweek because I'd set myself a certain...

I had set it to turn off during the week, and I in fact turned it off early because it was starting to wind down.

And I wanted to set up a different ad for a specific purpose.

So I'm trying to do the Nicola Zarek system because I realized this is the 7,000th time I've had this realization that what I need to do is the things that play into my strengths.

And I am very good at just following a very rigorous and complex system, which is what he has.

And he puts off a lot of people, but he has like, I need someone to say, here's how you test ads, test ABCDEFGHRJ.

I like test all these different possible variables, take the numbers and that tells you what to do.

I was like, oh, that is exactly what I need.

But I know that if I start doing it, it's really complicated and it starts to fall apart, it's not working quickly enough, I will feel disheartened because I'm very busy.

So I'm just testing out a few parts of the system right now.

So one was just, can I set the ads up in the right way?

Now I'm testing, can I set the ads up in the right way, the attribution, and in fact, my current ads are not going as well as the one before.

And that's really nice to see, just to see like, oh, there is a lot of variability to it because I set it up slightly differently.

So there is variability to it, and all I have to do is find the right set of variables that will work for me.

So fantastic.

Yeah, so I almost didn't reach my ideal goal, but I did, and I'm feeling fantastic about it.

And yeah, everything is wins.

I am still very busy, but it has been nice.

It was nice to have a day of not doing too much work and feel like I can just read today.

And that was delightful.

And no whinges.

I feel much better after yesterday's sort of slight low day.

How about you?

I am full of whinges.

I have been editing my next book, which is coming in at the end of April, and I'm loving it so much.

And I don't care if nobody else likes it.

I don't know why they wouldn't.

Yes, I edited a kissing scene yesterday, which had me like, I just was, I wanted to squeal.

And I also know that some people are going to hate it.

And I can't say why because spoilers.

But yeah, just like I'm feeling all the vibes of this book and can't wait.

Like I'm just really excited.

And it's filling me with all that joy that I was talking about last week about just feeling like I'm really excited about the whole process that I'm in.

Also last week, my Wish I'd Known Then podcast episode finally came out.

I thought it was the week before, but it didn't.

And so I kept my mouth shut.

It was last week and it was really fun to listen back to myself talking.

I've had so many nice things said about it.

A lot of people enjoyed it.

And yeah, it's nice to hear that I wasn't just a rambling idiot, because sometimes I feel like I'm a rambling idiot.

And we had a great time.

What can I say?

Like me, Sarah and Jamie hit it off.

I feel like we laughed a lot.

Surely the funniest episode they've ever recorded.

After yours, after yours.

Yeah.

No, I had a really good time.

Yes, equal.

Yeah, it was really, really good.

Just felt all the good things last week.

My whinge is that even though I'm excited about this third book, I'm mentally struggling with how to get people involved in it.

It's difficult to kind of think about what I should be selling people on when I'm talking about it on social media.

We had to talk about this before we started the podcast, and I do feel like I've got some ideas of what I should do, but it has been making my brain hurt a bit trying to think of strategies for publish.

But yes, go on.

We just had a hand raise.

I think we are in act two, because I've got the exact same issue that I've got.

I've got lots of great advanced reviews, like much, much better than any of these ever got, like and they're using consistent language of like compelling and grossing.

And I was like captivating, like I need to do something with this, and I don't know what.

So we're at act two, where we are facing new challenges, and we don't quite know how to meet them.

And that is what this year is about.

We're not facing like act one problems.

We're not like, how do I, how does Facebook work?

How do I make a book?

Do I just keep writing books?

No, we're at like new and exciting challenges.

Yeah, I don't, and it's not getting me down so much as just making me, my brain hurt because I'm thinking, having to try and think differently.

I've never finished a series before, and so I don't know what the protocol is for it.

Obviously, next time I come to finish a series, I'll know because I've done this.

Yeah, so it's a whinge, but it's not really a whinge.

It's just a mild wha, yeah.

Gotta have them every now and again.

Yeah, just a thing to be pondering.

Yes.

We're sort of pondering something very different today.

We've been talking for a couple of weeks about money things.

Obviously, we're now money experts since we had a break for the, we came and advised us.

We've talked about our general budgets, and today we're talking quite specifically about part of the, a side of the business that I think a lot of people are experienced with and maybe would like some more ideas on.

And it's about self-publishing on a shoestring.

So keep your costs low when you're self-publishing.

How we can kind of go about it.

And we said last week we wanted to have a budget of $100, did we say?

$100, 100 pounds, you know, that's all.

Not enough money, basically.

Yeah, a very small budget for if you only had that much spent in a book, how would you do it?

And I think that's that's quite a specific number.

So we could sort of come to that at the end of the podcast talk about, like, where would we spend our money?

It's definitely, we've both talked about how we have, you know, we've got jobs, we've got no kids, we've got some disposable income that we can save.

So we're definitely not in the no money category.

There are plenty of people out there trying to do it on absolutely nothing.

And really that I think is, it's difficult to make those choices.

And we're both in a position where we can save up money and spend it on the books.

So I think what's maybe useful to talk about, at least first, is like, where have we decided to cut money?

When we know that some people are spending more money.

And I think for me, like, definitely the thing that I wanted to make sure I talked about today is quite far through the process, but it was in terms of formatting, which in fact is a place where I think I spend no money, but you spend money.

And part of that is...

Yeah, well, we'll get into that detail in a minute.

So when you've written the book, edited it, got the cover, a lot of people talk about those as being like non-negotiables.

But formatting the book, there are really good free options.

So that's in terms of like making it go from a word document into whatever you need to whatever the current version of file you need to put it on Amazon is, which they're changing yet again.

Yes.

So I...

And it's definitely genre dependent.

I wrote Cozy Mysteries, which they don't have a lot of like, they don't need a lot of decorative, you know, drop caps and flourishes and things.

So I just used Draft2Digital, and I don't know why you would use anything else.

Really, it's so quick and easy.

You have all the control yourself.

There's no cost.

You can put it in, click a few buttons and it's done.

I would need a strong reason to want to spend money on formatting.

So for me, I think it's useful.

And there's things like, I think that kind of comes into the category of like, things like people spend money instead on, you know, various formatting things, and they all spend money on like, different platforms to word.

And I think to me, those seem like luxuries that you absolutely don't need to spend money on.

And I'm aware, I'm going to say again, very genre dependent, but those to me seem like they're want, not a need.

And I think you should, I think a lot of people talk about it as if they are absolutely necessary.

Like you have to be spending money on formatting programs or formatters, and you really don't at all.

Like unless you are in a really specific genre, in which case you still can find cheap ways to do it.

I'm sure you can find friends who've got the programs, or you can find a cheap formatter to do something for you.

But then you're really stuck on being able to not do it yourself.

I would say that is bottom of a list of places to spend money.

The only place I absolutely would always spend money or find a very, very good alternative to spending money is covers and editing.

Is there any way that you think people traditionally spend money that you would say not at all for me?

I think it's difficult because I am notorious for not wanting to spend any money on anything ever.

Even though I have money, I don't want to spend it.

When I published my first book, I made my own cover, did my own formatting, did my own editing.

And so it was a free production.

I definitely shouldn't have done my own editing.

I know that.

I'm fine.

Like, because, you know, I didn't think anything was going to come of it anyway.

So like, there was no big deal.

But I do think I had, I think I had at that time, I bought Scrivener because I thought that I was supposed to.

You don't, like, I would say, I would say I would never pay for a word processor.

I would never pay for, I know you don't pay for formatting.

I like, I have the ability to do my own formatting because I have bought software, and I know Draft2Digital exists, but I like somebody else doing it because she's also, like my formatter is also just like the last pair of eyes that sees things and I'm terrible for attention to detail.

So I do kind of rely on her to catch things that I haven't seen.

But I am going to be honest and say I don't pay her.

We have a friendship deal where she gets to, and I get everything from it, and she gets nothing from it, which is how I like all my friendship deals.

Now she formats my books and gets to use, she uses them in her portfolio.

I would love to be able to, as I progress in my career, I want to pay her.

And that's something that I personally want to do, but I don't think you have to have somebody else.

I understand, that's just like a want rather than need.

I think you're raising a good point there is like, if you are someone who you know has lower attention to detail, you need to find that in some way.

And that can just be swapped with someone that you know has better attention to detail.

So I know that I have very good attention to detail.

Part of my job is editing.

So for example, my book, I only get copy edits.

I don't get a further proofread.

I read it out loud and I catch, I have had a very occasional typo brought up from Amazon, like as a reported typo.

And I, and it was maybe like two on my very first book, and that's it.

I know that I am good at finding those things.

And I know that professional books still have typos and it's absolutely fine.

Like my most recent book came back from the copy editor and two of the chapters, I numbered two of the chapters the same number.

And I caught it with ease.

Like it's something that I think I'm so used to doing.

I've been editing for years now.

I'm so used to doing that, I would not.

But if I weren't doing that professionally, I would find it very anxiety-inducing, I think, to put a book out there being like, well, I looked at that.

It's probably fine.

But I think that is something you can swap with someone because also just someone else's eyes, even if you're someone using our great attention to detail, looking at someone else's manuscript is better than looking at your own.

Yeah.

I also similarly with covers, I, if you are particularly good at design, and I think a lot of people out there are better than they think.

There are some people out there who are terrible and they don't realize it.

But if you have any kind of inkling towards design and you want to give it a go, there are free photo editing softwares that you can use to make your own covers if you so chose to.

I think that that's always a fun option.

I love making my own covers and I don't use them.

I will just, I make a cover for everything, every book that I write.

The first thing I do is make a cover.

Also, you have to use a 10th cover for advertising your upcoming book and it is so good.

Everyone keeps mentioning, please use that cover.

It's phenomenal, I love the cover.

It's really good.

I have, it's a secret, secret talent.

Yeah, it was something I knocked up, but I had previously made, this is like going off on a tangent, but I had previously made five or six random covers throughout the year of writing that book that I wanted to, every now and again, I'd be like, oh, maybe I'll just try and make that cover again and see if I can figure out what the vibe is.

And that, but that was all done.

Apart from like the one that I've just made, which people love, all the previous ones were free Canva.

I was just, I just make things on free Canva.

But we'll talk about Canva later.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think that-

I was gonna say what's interesting is like, you've said that most people are quite good at covers.

I would say people are not.

Like, I think realistically most people are not.

But I think you're right that if you are artistically inclined and you actively want to learn that skill, not that you're gonna go with the skill you have right now.

I think it's again, very genre dependent.

So actually, I think interestingly Cozy's and things like rom-coms often have like quite a two dimensional flat look.

That's easier to do than things that require dimensionality and sort of texture.

Because I think there are tricks that people use that you don't know, that you will never know unless you've done it or unless you've learned a lot.

It's interesting that quite a lot of Cozies are homemade Cozy Covers.

I think two of the biggest Cozy Authors, or not the biggest, but like two quite big ones, so Agatha Frost and HY.

Hanna both make their own.

And they look beautiful.

And it also means you can change your covers quite regularly.

So I know of a couple of people who, I don't know if it's known, they make their own.

So I won't talk about their names, but they can just try different covers all the time.

And it is delightful to have that power at your fingertips.

I think that I would love to make my own covers, but I do not want to learn how to do it because I would do it and spend a lot of time on it.

I think I'm very good at distracting myself with that sort of thing.

But yes, it's very genre dependent.

I think that you have to be really, really confident that you can do it.

A bit like I'm really confident that I can edit, right?

And it's something I do professionally, but I would never be the only editor on my book, but I'm confident that I can catch typos left after the editor and I've corrected things.

I cannot.

Just like I think I love design.

I think it like I like playing with graphics and things.

But when I've tried to like I've tried to previously like mock up a design for, for my design, I want to change covers.

I was like, I probably could just pull up something for him that will look kind of right.

Literally the worst you've ever seen in your life.

You look like a child who's done it.

So bad.

And I think I think there is skills you can learn that you can find a way to figure out like, I couldn't like, these aren't going together.

And like, it doesn't look like it's the same.

Like, it's not got the same three dimensions.

You don't understand why.

And I could just learn that I don't I actually try to avoid learning their skills because otherwise I will fiddle forever.

And so I do think we're really careful when you look in those like, various India author Facebook groups, there are people in there putting in the worst 1990s graphics looking things you've ever seen in your life.

I'm just stubbornly refusing to accept any feedback as like true and then putting in the same cover with very small differences over and over and over again to put where I was like, I don't understand.

Are you trolling everyone right now?

I have seen those posts.

Yeah, the caveat is like, if you are artistically inclined, you know you are, you don't question it.

Like I know I'm artistically inclined.

I don't question that.

I know that I can, I know what looks good and I know how to use software.

And I have been like, I've done digital arts and like physical art for like my entire life.

So I know that I know how it works, which is why I would in the future, I mean, I love my cover designer at the moment.

And I want to work with her for as long as possible.

But if I needed to in a pinch, do my own cover, I feel like I could do it.

So, you know if you can.

Yeah, I think I think there's so much good, you know, content out there.

There's so many good YouTube videos about how to make it.

And professional Canva, as you're both big fans of 10 everyone, it's 100 pounds a year.

Like if I had 100 pounds spent on a book, I might just spend on professional Canva and figure out a way to get some editing swaps because really, there's great templates in there.

You could find book cover templates.

So if you're in a real pinch, you can do that.

I would also say you've got to be really, really good at copying from the that's the bigger thing.

Actually, it's like knowing what it should look like.

Copy from, like an amalgamation of the top 10 covers in your drama written by indie authors, not tried ignore those look at the top 10 indie authors, not people who have been in the top 10.

I wouldn't even say top 10, maybe like the top 20 to 50, because top 10 is often a bit skewed.

But yeah, looking top of like a movable, a movable group, ones who are not just stuck there for a long time because their fans love them, really say that you have to be very honest with yourself and say, I'm finding something genre appropriate, not something that looks nice, because that is irrelevant.

It has to be genre appropriate and indie appropriate.

So you have to be really good at looking at that.

But I do think when people say, never down your own covers, it's for those people who don't listen in Facebook groups.

It's not people who would love to learn to take their own covers.

Yes, who wants to learn.

Yeah.

So I think if I were really short of money, I would design my own cover.

If I were in the right genre, and I think I am, and I would spend time doing it, I would enjoy learning how to do that.

And likewise, I would do a significant push on my own editing, but I would still want a second pair of eyes on it, and I would find a way to pay to do that.

Yeah, I think that editing, again, like my last book was edited for free.

I'm sorry, everyone.

I'm really good at finding deals.

Yeah, I don't.

Okay, so it is a skill.

I'm just very good at...

I've said this before.

I'm like a weird publishing matchmaker of some kind.

I get people into the business, and then they become part of my team.

Yeah, I use an editor who just wanted to kind of start trying to edit and stuff, and she did a fantastic job.

But now I want to pay her, like I'm willing to pay her.

But I think editing is something that I definitely, in the future, if I was starting out now, I would pay for an editor.

And I think that you can find good deals.

I don't think you have to pay thousands and thousands of pounds, like I see some people doing.

If you're...

That's insane.

Yeah.

I mean, like, can you not use any words correctly?

Otherwise, why are you paying for that?

I think, yeah, you can make trades.

That was very harsh, sorry.

I know.

No, I agree.

I think...

I don't know.

Yeah, I can't really chime in on it properly because I don't know what people, what kind of manuscripts people are providing.

I would never be at that stage where I thought I'd never...

If I was paying someone thousands of pounds to edit a book, I'd be expecting them to rewrite it.

Write the whole book, yeah.

And that's not...

I just want people to kind of catch things for me.

That's it.

And help me send...

Because I think often they aren't as exhaustive an edit as you would think, right?

People say they pay thousands for it.

I would expect for that, I would expect to get a dev edit, a copy edit, a line edit, a proofread.

But again, how bad is your writing that sounds offensive?

I know, I know.

Yeah, it's difficult to chime.

How do you not trust yourself that you do that?

I think that's the issue.

We're like, that you can't catch anything, that you can't trust your own instincts on some things.

I think if, and it's maybe your first couple of books, you know, maybe, because I also think like, I have been to critique groups for years and years and years.

And I think from that, you learn not just like small edits, but you're learning big edits, you're learning feedback that is needed for those larger stages of edits, so things like dev edits, even copy edits, like you're figuring out what works and what doesn't work on the page.

And I think people who are wanting to pay those big sums, to me, that says you've skipped a lot of stages and that you are not able to trust any of your own instincts, because you can't buy quality.

Like if you send someone a rubbish book and you pay them thousands of pounds, they can give you back a well, you know, an orderly, like a good and orderly rubbish book.

I think you want to be choosing very carefully.

I think there's definitely benefits to paying for a dev edit, and there's benefits paying for a copy edit and a line edit and a proofread.

But if you're just blindly taking all of those, you need to be putting more thought into what do you need and why?

And are you doing it for every book or just want to see the process?

Yeah, if I did that for every book, I wouldn't be able to publish a book.

I wouldn't be able to publish a book if every book cost me over a grand.

That to me is maybe in the future when I've got more money to, actually I know that's not true.

When I've got more money, I'm not spending more on those things.

But I think that if you're starting out and you don't have a lot of money to spend and you're looking to get edits on your book, the best thing that you can do, and maybe this is not what people want to hear and stuff, but I think trade your manuscript with somebody else's, you can proofread theirs, they can edit.

There's always some-

There's also programs like Grammarly and ProWritingAid now, which are not cheap in themselves, but I think some of them you can get subscriptions too, so you could afford it for just a small time.

You might have a friend who's got a subscription that can lend you use of it.

You also might just say, okay, I'm going to even this cost out over full book, so even though I'm spending 100 pounds right now, I might pay monthly and say like that's going to cover my editing costs the whole year.

Interestingly, how you're saying you wouldn't pay more if you had more time.

Well, I'm going to say it was made with Bella Andre, but that absolutely might be a lie.

I can't remember what I was listening to at all.

But let's say it's Bella Andre, it was someone like her.

It was Bella Andre, and it was a really interesting episode.

I'm going to try to figure out what it was on because it was so good.

And she was so honest about all the different developments to her business, its size is and also about her branding and the way that she's very particular about her brand.

Anyway, she was saying, she isn't like the thing that only she can do is the writing.

And she has a team of full-time editors who are swapping books between them.

And they're having multiple edits.

And that just means that she is having to do less of that, like, worrying over the punctuation in the words, and, you know, the grammar and the spelling things, because those things really aren't important.

If you get a team that you know can consistently do that, they can say, like, oh, you're always going to miss his comments this way, doesn't really matter, we'll fix it.

You're not having to worry about that.

You can write quicker and focus on the parts that are important.

And so I do think that you would spend more money if you make more money, because you're not going to do the things that slow me down.

Yeah, I think if that's the way my business worked, if my business expanded to that sort of thing where I was having to write more books and I had a good team of people when I trusted.

Yeah, exactly.

If I was Bella, then I would be like, yeah, this is a great way to spend money.

But if I'm just thinking, if I'm just going to be continuing doing what I'm doing right now, but the books I release pay me more money, but I keep this business model for the time being, I wouldn't want to increase those costs much more than I would already be willing to pay now.

And then when I become like a multi-millionaire, like selling books, like a hundred books every hour, you know, on my yacht with Keanu Reeves beside me, then yeah, yeah, of course.

Then I'll reconsider how much I'd spent.

You might just then, maybe Keanu could talk you into it.

He'd be like, it's your stress, Sam.

Let me fan you while you pay for an editor to do this work.

Yeah, he'd be like, massage in my shoulders.

He only wants to ask for you.

He does, and I know that, and I'm appreciative of him.

Yeah.

I bet he's a good editor.

I bet Keanu Reeves is a great editor.

I bet he'd do it for you.

No comment.

He's good at everything.

I do remember, by the way, I think it was a Spargeyes episode, and they were at a conference together.

So I will find that episode was a nice live one.

It reminded me a lot of our side by side episode because they were just chatting over each other the whole time.

I was like, yeah, that's what it's like, we did together.

But it was a really good one.

And I think it was so interesting to listen to someone at quite a different stage of the business, but still thinks about the same thing.

So really thinks about, is that my brand or not?

Am I going to do that?

She set up a separate pen name to publish books that she'd got in the drawer.

And she didn't want to publish them as herself because she was like, the Bella Andre brand is incredibly reliable, people know exactly what they're going to get from that.

And I never want to taint that.

And that was a really nice thing to hear because like really, she's Bella Andre, she could put anything out and people will buy it.

But she's like, it doesn't matter, I don't ever want to mess up people's experience that way.

But yes, I think it's interesting whenever I hear on other podcasts, people saying like, oh, just find a friend to swap with or just find someone that's starting out.

To me, that's always been like, that seems like not a real thing.

Because I don't, I'm not a magnet for publishing people.

And I don't love, I don't know, talking to people maybe apart from you.

I have done that in the past.

That's how I got into like properly taking this a little bit more seriously, is that I found somebody in a Facebook group who was, I followed the author Maggie Stiefvater, who has like a Facebook group.

And every now and again, she would open up a website where you could go and say, what kind of book you were writing, and you could find an author who was in your genre, and you would swap manuscripts and basically help each other with like critiquing and stuff, like a critiquing group.

And that was how I first got into exchanging a manuscript with somebody who I'd never met before.

And we both helped each other out, gave edits back, and then both published our books.

And that was probably where I started realizing like, I don't have to pay somebody like loads of money to do this.

I could work with somebody to do this.

And I think that maybe set up my mindset.

I'm probably like told the universe, let's get woo woo, told the universe that was how I like to work.

And that's how I've managed to work the whole time.

And I know that's lucky if you want to call it luck, or if you just want to call it.

No, I know it's weird.

It works for personality.

Yeah, I would always rather pay to get rid of problem if I can.

If I have the financial means, I don't want to have to, I don't have more than I need.

So does anyone.

So if I can pay for an answer that I know will suit my needs.

And in fact, I don't even work with one person, I work with an agency that is a small agency, but it is recommended by a friend of mine, Jordan Rivett, who I've talked about before.

And it's a woman who has like a small team of editors.

So I don't even have to talk to the person.

I've never talked to the person, in fact, who edits my books.

I've never even emailed them.

I just send it to a woman, she passes it on to an editor, and then I get it back, which is exactly a sort of impersonal relationship.

Like, you're so different.

It's so funny.

I like I want to be best friends with this person.

I want to be emailing them and we're going to be friends on Instagram and send each of the messages.

And yeah, I love-

It's a beautiful matter.

It's-

when you work with me, you're basically with me for life.

I'm sorry to say.

Yeah.

Just gathering a good group of friends.

Eventually, it will lead to world domination in some way.

Yeah.

And so I think when people have said, oh, you know, find someone to swap with or find someone in their career, that to me has always felt really unrealistic.

And it is really interesting to hear about, oh, that's just the way that I want to work.

I would say if somebody is like me and you're fairly antisocial, and you do not-

you're an overly independent, independent author, I think ways in which I would replace that is my-

yeah, we talked about before, I would pay software, I get software for editing, and I would spend hours enjoying learning cover design.

And then I would replace those skills without ever having to see a real person, or talk to one of them.

I'm not antisocial.

Anyone who's covered the SPS, please do come to my eye.

I do like needing people.

You're so-

yeah, we're like so different because it sounds like I'm really social, and it sounds like you're antisocial.

But then-

but I'm so antisocial and you're so social.

I know, I just like stay inside.

But in theory, I am the most social person that there is.

And I love people, but I also love staying inside.

I just like-

I really like being on my own.

Yeah, like it's such a conundrum.

We're both equally weird opposites.

But just in a right combination.

Yeah.

So yeah, so those are ways to save money on like the production costs.

So for editing and formatting and covers.

Other things, so things I spend money on.

I've done my budget recently.

I spent money on a website.

And honestly, if I didn't have money, I just wouldn't have a website.

It's not-

I know people say you have to have a professional.

Nobody cares.

You're gonna buy a book anyway.

Don't bother.

Get one at some point.

Find the cheapest option at some point.

But honestly, it's not worth money that I spend on it.

I just have it because now I have it and I've never wanted to set up again in my life.

And now I own my domain name.

I can't get rid of it.

So fine.

Oh, yeah.

No one's having that.

You get your domain name, you hold on to it forever.

No, I've got domain names that I just pay for every year because I can't let them have it.

What if Taylor Swift got a new account and called it Matilda?

I'd lose my domain and never be able to afford to get it back.

No, you'd sell it, hold it to ransom.

You'd sell it for a ridiculously high amount.

But what if I let go of it?

What if I let go of it because I didn't need it and then I'd never get it back?

I'd never get any variation of it back.

Yeah.

So yes, wouldn't have a website.

Book Funnel, I think you can get a cheap option or a free option if you're starting out and you don't want to use it, an expensive option.

I think there's that.

The story original says a free version.

The mid-list for Book Funnel, I've put Book Funnel on my list of if I had a £100 to spend on this.

Book Funnel mid-list is what I've got.

That's £100 for the year or $100, something like that.

I think it's $115 a year.

I think I pay extra because you can have an add-on for an extra $50.

This is like getting into details.

You can have an add-on for extra $50 to integrate it with your mailing list.

But you obviously don't have to do that.

I do have that.

But yeah.

Yeah.

I think if I were really short of money, I would struggle with that Book Funnel.

I would find it not thing.

I would really seriously consider I would try and find the money for it.

Because I used it a lot when I was starting out to do list builders, so to get people reading my free novella.

And I still use it for art delivery.

I think it is very, very useful.

And I think if I weren't doing it, I would be missing out on part of the business that I would need, especially in the beginning.

Yeah.

100%.

I would also pay for a newsletter.

I would pay for that for a website any day of the week.

And you can still get ones that are very cheap or free.

If you go into any of the, you know, self-pub groups, you'll find people recommending various things.

I use probably what is a more expensive option now.

So I use MailerLite.

I'm still on the classic pricing, and I'm going to be concerned, like annoyed when it goes up to the more, what are they calling it now?

Neon or something.

They've got a new version that's got a different pricing.

I'll be annoyed.

But still, their customer service is fantastic.

The quality of the product is really good.

So it's worth it.

Fine.

But I'll be annoyed.

But I would have a newsletter before almost anything else.

Yes, I put a newsletter on my free, if you're just starting out and you don't have any money.

And the one thing that I would do first is set up an email subscription.

I still have free MailChimp.

I have not yet reached the point where I need to pay, because I'm still building my mailing list.

If you're listening to this, please subscribe.

Self plug, self plug.

Yeah, so I still have, I just have free MailChimp, and that works perfectly for me at the moment.

I'm definitely going to be spending money on that in the near future.

But for now, I think that's one of the things that I think is easy to do, cheap to start with.

And yeah, you want to be able to get directly to people.

I'm building a mailing list, even though it took me years and years to really consider taking it seriously.

Until we started talking and I realized that I had been neglecting such a great avenue of everything.

Yeah, it is very important.

And I think when people are deciding whether or not they should be sitting at mailing lists and thinking that they don't want to, you're wrong.

You need to.

You can't rely on social media.

I don't want anybody to rely on social media to sell books.

You can't rely on Amazon's algorithms.

You have to be warming up those leads and creating that for yourself.

And a mailing list is the only way to do it.

So get a free account.

Yeah.

And get it ASAP, like before you start publishing.

So, yes.

So do you think we can come in under 100 for our book?

So we've got some costs that I think I would want to have in that we spread over the year, but I would maybe have book funnel, free mailing list, no website.

So book funnel is the only cost.

That's like what, a tenner a month.

So not a huge amount.

I hope I'm spreading out a few books.

I am spending, ideally next to nothing on editing, because I'm going to find a way to either swap with a friend who's also good at editing or use some software in the very beginning.

If I have a slightly bit more money, I will pay for an editor.

I think that is very useful.

At the minimum for your first few books, to figure out what your consistent problems are.

Really, I think I could probably get rid of my editor right now and I could go for something like Grammarly or ProWritingAid.

But I really like having someone else just to catch the things I won't catch, because I think it's a second pair of eyes and also yes.

Also, sometimes writes like nice compliments on it.

And that's quite nice to get back.

Yeah, that's the best part.

When you're so scared to get the document back with the comments, and you read the ones that are like, obviously, the like, why?

What kind of punctuation is this?

These are the wrong words.

Reorder this sentence.

It makes no sense.

But then then you get the one that's like, I love this part.

Like, smiley faces, or like, my favourite one was the, my editor put in the comments, meme of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the screen.

Yeah, that was my favourite one ever.

And that's, yeah, I love getting edits back.

Yeah, it's nice having Cumin involved in the business.

So I think you don't want to cut out too much.

I would say, if there's one of the two things, covers editing, that you feel like you could not replace Chillfresh or Standard in some way, find the money for it, it's worth it 100%.

You don't want to put a book out there that you don't feel confident about.

You don't want to put a cover on, you know, that isn't going to stand out in a good way.

Yeah, there are cheap covers out there.

There really are, like, there's lots of companies that do them for astoundingly cheap, but they look cheap.

And I think you struggle nowadays to find a genre where you can get away with, like, a cover from Fiverr.

At the very bare minimum, you have to spend a lot of time learning the conventions and doing it yourself and learning how to do it yourself.

And to many of you, that's not going to be worth the time.

Really, you might as well do an extra job to get some more money to pay someone to do it.

So my covers are very cheap.

I pay, as I think we said this last week, so I will give general price, I don't want to give prices for cover designers because I think sometimes they leave you on an old rate and you don't want to publicize that for everyone.

So I do four short, I price myself out of four short works a year for editing, a full copy edit and a cover ebook and paperback reach.

And that came in about 1300 pounds for the year.

So dividing that by four, that's already quite cheap.

And if I was cutting that down a little bit, I could find ways to trim that if needed.

Yeah, I think similarly, I don't want to give my prices away because I don't want somebody to be like, oh, I'll find out who does Sam's covers and then try and go in at that price and then get my prices bumped up.

But my books cost about, it's like 500 pounds each at the moment.

Maybe a bit more if I was taking into consideration a bit of extra things, but definitely less than 1000 pounds per book.

Yeah, that's always going to be my target, try and keep those prices down.

You write in a genre with like expensive covers and with more fancy things around the text, so they're interesting in that.

Yeah, and I know that I will end up paying more for like editing and formatting, but there's definitely more to consider with fantasy books.

You do need to, you have to have interiors that look like people expect, drop caps, scene breaks with small illustrations, and yeah, there's definitely a little bit more to it.

And I think I do it on a very good shoestring budget myself.

I think that people could do similar to me for cheaper.

But yeah, I think that when you say book funnel is something that you definitely pay for, my other thing is Canva Pro.

Even as someone who gets their covers done, it's marketing material.

You will never regret.

And it's all your marketing materials.

All marketing materials.

There's nothing you can't make from there.

You can do all your branding, you can do all of, just everything is so good.

I love it so much.

I want to, I should be working for them.

Yeah, we should be working for them.

We should get sponsored by Canva.

But it doesn't matter because we still pay for it.

Yes, and I cannot say this enough, for less than a tenner a month, you can get everything you would want.

I, I rule my for myself decision not to pay for it.

I didn't even look in the mirror, I assumed it would be expensive.

And I was like, sat there, peering through for the free images.

What an absolute waste of my life.

Yeah, for a hundred pounds, it's worth it.

If you make, you know, any number of images, even for like your personal, you know, I make, I made posters for my birthday party this year.

And, you know, invitations for my Christmas party.

This sounds like I'm the fanciest lady ever, but I've had some big events this year.

But yeah, and just having like made that easy would have been worth the money.

Yeah, I genuinely though think that if I were starting out and I were really struggling for money, if I had at all any time to do some additional work to get the money, I would do that before I would do these things myself, before I would make my own cover, I would, if at all possible, do some extra work, like some extra shifts if, you know, and that's coming from a position of privilege, I'm aware, like people are exhausted.

But if you're taking the time to write the book, take the extra time to make the book look as good as it can look.

Yeah, I think so.

I think that if you're not already set with publishing dates, if you literally are at the first step where you've written the book, you haven't yet got anybody invested, nobody's like waiting for it, nobody's expecting anything from you, you are in a place of like, that's a magic place to be.

Take a little bit longer, save up a little bit more money for a good cover if you aren't going to be making your own.

The time itself, like taking the extra time is also a good way to save money in publishing.

Just take a little bit longer.

Yeah, and you kind of always recover things as well.

I think there's a big benefit where I had some cheap pre-mades done because I was let down by a cover die at least a minute.

And I had got dates in and I had got books planned and I got released the schedule.

I was like, oh, I don't have covers.

And I got pre-mades done and it kept me to get them changed.

It kept me to get them changed.

And it took me a long time to get them changed.

And now it feels so much easier to promote the books because I know that they look more to market.

And I think I would like to be in a position where I could comfortably get them changed every few years.

You know, I think that that feels like a business, like expense that I want to be able to feel comfortable spending rather than thinking I've covered them once.

I spent them and it's a sunk cost.

I can't, you know, can't spend any more.

Yeah, that's a good reason why you shouldn't spend loads on your covers.

I get that some people make beautiful covers and they again, thousands of pounds, or like hundreds and hundreds of pounds.

You, that's such a temporary spend.

If you spend too much, you're never going to recoup that cost.

That product will take longer to pay off.

So that is something that you have to take into consideration.

The more you spend on a book, the longer it's going to take you to then make a profit on that book.

And that's just really demoralizing when you start looking at how much you're making.

And you think, I've not even paid off one book yet because this book cost me five grand to publish.

Yeah.

It seems like...

Some genres change cover trends very quickly.

Yeah.

You have to change every couple of years.

So I think fantasy is pretty bad for that.

It's all parts of fantasy.

You know, if you don't change your covers every couple of years, it just looks like an old book.

I think in Cozy, there's a bit more variety.

I think you can get away with a couple of different styles at the same time.

It's not like everyone follows a certain trend religiously, but you will start looking old.

So for example, the cream and red covers were really, really everywhere for a few years.

I think there's a limited amount of time you could keep your cream and red covers and not start to look very dated.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Do you...

But you can start with something that you know you're going to change later.

You can always make improvements if you realize, I didn't spend as much money as I should have done.

It's not the end of the world.

Get something changed.

Yeah.

I've added on my list of other free things that people should consider as part of their publishing.

I've got like LibreOffice, which is what I use, like word processor, and Photopia, which is a free Photoshop, which is just an online version.

But Discord groups, just to talk about like plug, plug, plug, but just as a way to find the right people and maybe find people to help and get recommendations for things.

You are going to be so happy and feel so good if you already know the answers to these questions from people within your genre.

And joining a Discord group or a Facebook page, I think Facebook is the worst.

I just hate using Facebook as that because it's just so muddy.

But Discord groups recently, I mean, we obviously have our own Discord group.

I'm now all over Discord.

I'm just always on it.

I've never felt better about having an app that connects me to people because I've found a great community and I feel like I'm asking people about...

I've recently put in a blurb that I'd written and I knew that it wasn't right.

So I asked for feedback on this blurb that I've written.

And it was told immediately like, it's great, but it's not what you need.

And if I hadn't asked that question, even as somebody who is...

I don't even know how many books I've published now.

I can't even count 10, maybe.

I'm still not great at writing blurbs.

It is so hard.

My blurbs are before we had our Discord.

I thought my blurb had been a different Discord I remember of.

And I had already done a lot of work on it, and I thought it was really good.

And people gave incredibly useful, not super nice to hear, but incredibly useful feedback that made the blurb 100% better.

And I think I've written the world's best blurb.

Yeah.

Genuinely, it's great.

I really liked the blurb that I've written.

I knew it was a bit too long, but yeah, I was told basically try, try again.

And I'm fine with that because I trust the people in the group that I've got.

And like I say, even as somebody who isn't doing their first book isn't really at the very, very start, needs the help.

Like I needed the help and I've found people who can help.

And that is really something that you can't pay for that.

You can, but you don't want to, because you have got a community who can give you really, really helpful feedback.

So I think Discord or just finding your community online is the best free thing that you can do.

I've been harping on about it for the last few months.

It's my favorite thing.

I love Discord, Discord, Discord.

We have got the invite in our show notes.

So it's the Pen to Paycheck Authors.

I don't know if we've got that word there.

Pen to Paycheck.

Just Pen to Paycheck.

It's just Pen to Paycheck Discord.

Pen to Paycheck Discord, great.

I'll remember that probably for the next five minutes.

But yes, we've got the link in our show notes.

If you come and join there, there are a great range of authors in there.

So lots of people who are working at all different levels.

Everyone is very helpful.

You'll get responses straight away.

You can ask questions that you think are stupid, and someone will answer it in a speedy and complete manner, which is just exactly what you want.

And you can look back over lots of conversations.

You can search in there for conversations people have had on things that you've also asked questions on or you have questions on.

And we also ask a question of the week, which last week I forgot to write down, so I had to go and listen again to figure out what the question was.

So this week's question is like, it's going to be what are your best free tools, free or very cheap tools that you think self publishers should know more about?

You talk while I write that down to remember exactly what I said.

Yeah, I am excited about that because I do think that you don't know until you know.

There were so many things that I didn't know until me and Matilda started talking about everything and doing our mastermind.

Like sadly, there was very obvious things that I came to realize and made me feel like a fool.

And if you too want to feel like a fool, come to the Discord.

The best Discord.

But you can get, no, I'm, I'm really, I'm...

like self-publishing, there's no way to know.

You don't need to trust for a really long time.

I feel so grateful.

I never said before, I feel so grateful.

I knew someone who was already very successful and could just tell me, do this, don't do that.

Don't listen to these people.

Here's my knowledge is.

It's like, oh, great.

That's like shortcut to everything.

I didn't have to have the full stage.

I definitely did foolish things.

That's fine.

But I could ask somebody help, which just changes everything.

Yeah, yes, definitely the help from, help from the people who know that you can trust.

And they're not just some random person on a Facebook group that's going to tell you something random, just loudly.

Yeah, it's the same people all the time.

I don't want to say avoid Facebook, but maybe just avoid Facebook for the most part.

Find some more, find smaller groups.

Yeah.

I think maybe that's what was wrapped up is, do you have anything else you'd like to add?

Anything free, anything?

No, I think it's interesting to do this one first before next week's episode, where we talked about the opposite situation.

And this, I think, is a more comfortable space of figuring out where you can do things as economically as possible.

So yes, I think nothing to add, though if you want to come to Discord and ask really specific questions, like, what should I be paying for this?

Or should I be paying anything for this?

We've had some conversation this week about ISBNs, for example, and I don't pay for my ISBNs, but I still think about it.

Should I pay for more?

Should I buy my own at some point?

I haven't.

I have free ones.

And if you wanted to ask me about, like, why they've chosen free and why they wouldn't choose free, you could ask me about that.

And I think I might do at some point, but it's not really on my list right now to do anything about it.

But yes, I think there's various things where you kind of don't think about it until you need to.

So we do have more ideas on this topic, but nothing that is as important as I want to talk about so far.

Okay, perfect.

Then next week, we will be talking about how to spend money on self-publishing if you do have it.

So complete opposite.

I'm scared.

Do you have any initial thoughts on this right now?

Yes, I'm also scared.

I think we've talked about this before, that it's really important to differentiate between like investing and kind of gambling and knowing which one you're doing and knowing how much knowledge you've got is and how much knowledge is required for each part of it.

So when you are new, the money that you spend is not an investment in your business.

It could be an investment in your business.

It could also be an absolute waste of money.

And you don't know enough to know what you're doing, which side you're on.

So I think that's what feels really hard about spending, about having money is like, you could in a matter of days spend it all on Facebook ads, like no matter how much money you've got, you could spend it on Facebook ads.

And, you know, or you could buy the expensive cover.

You know, if you're writing YA fantasy, for example, which just has a lot of treadles in there, a lot of very expensive looking covers, and you know, many people who are making big money are spending thousands on covers, that must feel very high pressure to think I have to have that myself.

And how do you know whether that's an investment or that's just throwing money away?

So I think that's the side of it I want to talk about tomorrow, next week, because obviously, you could spend all the money you want.

And if you've got it, you know, great, that sounds like a great position to be in, but there are definitely worries around it.

And dangers around it and things you have to go up before just letting your money go in its own way.

Yeah, I think maybe, like this week, we said, if we only had 100 pounds to spend, what would we spend it on?

I think the opposite would be, if you had a million pounds, what would you spend it on?

Because I would still not want to fritter that away.

But I think it may be unreasonable.

I think what's useful is to think about if we had a really specific amount, like say you had five grand, like if you had five grand, you want to invest in your business, where would you spend it?

But then if you had a million, you'd be living on the beach, and you'd be getting Keanu Reeves to go to write all your books.

I just think you'd be not investing in the same way that someone else would.

Yeah, okay.

Whereas five grand or 10 grand, I think people do save up, or they have savings, I think I want to invest in my business.

Yeah, I think five grand is a good amount because it is the amount that you might think you need to be spending or you might have got, say, if you might get a windfall for some thing, and you think I've got that money and I want to invest in my business, but how?

So let's set that as our target for next week.

Okay.

Just cap my dreams, why don't you find?

Yeah, that's fair enough.

You know how I like to dream big.

Well, thank you very much everyone.

Oh, go on.

Just put you on.

Just emphatical.

It's just been the entire time talking about how we would live in a farmhouse and wearing Michelle costumes all the time.

We would not be having a productive self-optimization conversation.

So yeah, dream should just stay as dream.

I'm going to, before I finish this podcast, I just want to say that we did, in fact, last week manifest of Romy and Michelle sequel.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

So watch this space.

Thank you very much to everyone for tuning in.

Oh, that's yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, we were now manifesting machines.

So I, yeah, I think that we're gonna do great things this year.

I, yeah, thank you for what, thank you for watching.

Thank you for listening.

Don't forget to subscribe.

Don't forget to join us on Discord and leave reviews everywhere you want.

If you want to leave lovely five-star reviews, then do it.

No one's stopping you.

Have a great day.

I'll see you next week.

You've been listening to Pen to Paycheck Authors.

Stay tuned for our next episode.

And don't forget to subscribe to learn how to write your way to financial success.

Samantha Cummings

S02E04: What Self Publishers Should Do on a Shoe String

S02E05: What Opportunities Money Brings

S02E03: What Money Mindset Means For Budgets