Today I received my final book cover files for Amazon. This journey involved my best friend Linda Scott and her contacts, which led me to Stephanie Corbin out of Texas. She illustrated my book from jacket design to internal section icons for Clicks, Tricks, & Golden Handcuffs: 5-Point Roadmap for Tech Executives to Land Big-Impact Roles.
It’s the final countdown.
I’m at T-minus 15 days before publishing my 190-page book on Amazon. Clearly, tech billionaire space flights are on my brain.
While Bezos had his “best day ever” with a 10-minute space flight with a million-dollar price tag, I’m clocking in at around $5,500 in expenses for my book debut.
I’m looking forward to my “best day ever.” Truth be told, every day being alive is the best day for me.
Applying simple math with my eBook priced at $9.95, paperback at $19.95, and hardback at $29.95, to break even—without considering any cut from the online or brick & mortar distributors—is a book volume of over 550 eBook units. Realistically, it’s almost 1,600 books to break even.
Simply put, unless you’re Michelle Obama or Stephen King, being an author and self-publisher doesn’t necessarily lead to the roads of riches. This book is my endeavor to share knowledge with aspiring tech execs, a consulting marketing tool, and, more importantly to me, a labor of love.
As an avid learner, I’m now savvy about the book self-publishing process. There’s a ton of admin. If writing is your jam but not the details, I’d strongly encourage seeking a publisher. Some hybrid publishers offer you all the creative control but eliminate the publishing “jumping through hoops.”
I’m self-publishing under my own imprint as Resumé Tech Guru Publishing and am using three different distributors for my book. Since all are profit-making entities, their fees reduce my net sales anywhere from 10 to 65 percent.
Amazon offers 35% and 70% royalty options for eBooks. IngramSpark pays 40% royalty on eBooks and charges an initial $49 for print and eBooks. Draft2Digital has zero setup fees; although they collect a 10% fee of the book price, most of their stores take a 30% fee.
Circling back to my $5,500 cost breakdown, it involves hiring a writing consultant, an editor, an illustrator, and a photographer. Then I incurred fees for U.S. copyright, advertising, publishing, media insurance, and International Standard BooK Numbers (ISBN) with accompanying bar codes.
I’m excited about the end product.
By next week, I’ll be publishing the details on how to purchase my book and review it.
