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9 min read Planning

EP03: Project & Budget Planning (Part One)

Just like your wedding, your retirement, or your kid's college fund; Your author career takes financial planning.
EP03: Project & Budget Planning (Part One)

"How's the wedding planning going?" You ask the engaged couple. Everyone knows you spend months planning and budgeting for the perfect wedding. In the same way, indie authors can spend years writing a book. Yet, they don't often stop and ask themselves: How's the book launch planning? What's my budget? And when few readers attend the party (purchase the book), it's not just a disappointment, it's a shock. Take heart, PubHyp reader, this won't be you.

Welcome to Episode 3 of Publishing Hypothesis!
Did you miss episode two? Read it here.

While I don't have an official statistic, it's safe to assume that strategic planning and budgeting are the most overlooked steps in self-publishing. The emotional journey of creating a book often leads to impulsive financial habits. Many indie authors spend ad money disproportionately with no strategy behind them. They outsource funds to people promising the moon, not realizing that the exact services they're buying could be attained for less than 20% of their spent cost. It's hard to cut through the noise when everyone and their dog offer you a publishing success package for a shiny thirty-grand. It's even harder when you spend that money and it doesn't yield the right results. This is why a well-thought-out plan is imperative for indie authors.

The Golden Rule:

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Throughout this article, please remember the golden rule: It's never too early to start saving for your project. Even putting away $15 a week when drafting will make a big difference in the resources available to you later down the line.

Don't forget: you're saving for an independent author career. Not just a book.

Four Goals for a Successful Book:

Commercial book success relies on four goals:

  1. 📝Write a good book
  2. 📦 Make it into a good & worthy product (PubHyp Term: Pre-Production Planning)
  3. 🌟 Reach your first 1000-2000 readers (PubHyp Term: Launch Plan)
  4. 🛍️ Develop a steady stream of readers within your target market (PubHyp Term: Post-Launch Plan - we will talk about this later)
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For budget and planning, we're going to focus on points 2 & 3.

Pre-Production Plan vs. Launch Plan

For now, we will split your budget and project plan into two halves: Pre-Production and launch. Think of it like planning an engagement versus a wedding day. Some couples prefer a more prolonged engagement to budget, save money, plan, etc. Others will see you at the altar seventy-two hours after they pop the question. And that's fine if your readers don't need the notice. Some genres work okay with that. For 90% of us, though, our readers aren't going to show up on pub day if we pull a fast one. Just like a wedding, we've got to remember to invite our readers to the party and allow plenty of time for them to get there. They're a crucial part to this whole book publishing thing.

  • Pre-Production: This is when you plan and save money for your book launch. You'll work with your designer, editors, and research vendors during this time. You'll spend alot of your project budget here, but you're not rushing to get to every next step. (You have as much time as you need to save!) You may have set a tentative/hopeful book launch date but haven't announced it yet. There's no pressure coming from your readers if you make a mistake and need to adjust things. You will feel outstanding about the book at this stage, thinking daily: the world needs this book right now. But patience, young grasshopper. (In our wedding example, Think of an engagement period where the couple is reserving/planning things here and there, but not a lot of pressure on the timeline 💍 🙂)
  • Launch Plan: All of your marketing budget should be spent in the 45 days around your book's publication. The date is announced. We're hell-bent on getting our readers to show up to the party. We're going to dump the allocated marketing dollars during launch strategically but quickly. This step is a planned-for smash in the piggy bank, but most authors do not want to execute it because it feels crazy to spend most of their project dollars in such a short time. Especially if you're not used to it. But remember, PubHyp is for indie authors looking for commercial success. A marketing campaign for any product, even your book, needs a clean and quick timeline. (In our wedding example, this is the wedding weekend. It happens fast, and the money is spent in a concentrated time period to make it the best event. There's pressure. 💒 😮)

Meet Pre-Production Planning

Pre-production planning is the happy lovebird time you get with your book before the emotional insecurity, stage fright, sick-of-yourself syndrome, and Goodreads Goblins come to get you in the night!! So let's make an effort to enjoy it😀✨

1️⃣ Step One: Checklist-ing

As a sixty-thousand unopened email and thirty million icons on my computer kinda person, I hate making checklists. Mostly because I can never find them. So, for this checklist, you're going to make it on real paper and place it/hang it/ post it somewhere you can keep track of your entire launch. (It feels so good to cross things off as you go!)

Checklist One: Everything that needs to be done in order to publish and how long it will likely take. Example:

  • Polished third or fourth draft - Twelve months
  • Developmental editing - Three months
  • Line editing - Two months
  • Copy Editing - One Month
  • Beta Readers - One month
  • Cover Design - One Month (Simultaneously)
  • Layout Design for eBook & paperback - Two Months (Simultaneously)
  • Physical book design decisions (size and paperweight) - One Week (Simultaneously)
  • ISBN Registration & Vendor Identity - One Week ( Simultaneously)

📆 Example Timeline: Nineteen to Twenty-One Months

Checklist Two: Research and estimate how much Checklist One is going to cost. It's better to overestimate than underestimate. Example:

  • Polished third or fourth draft - DIY Free
  • Developmental editing - $1200 USD
  • Line editing - $500 USD
  • Copy Editing - $500 USD
  • Beta Readers - DIY Free
  • Cover Design - $800 USD (Say you splurge here for an award winning designer)
  • Layout Design for eBook & paperback - DIY Free
  • Physical book design decisions (size and paperweight) - DIY Free
  • ISBN Registration & Vendor Identity - $100 USD

🤑 Example Total: $3100.00 USD

This number might knock your socks off! I'd consider this an above average self-publishing spend range. There are a variety of vendors at a variety of price points. Do you want to work with a top editor? Do you want an award-winning cover designer? There are also plenty of things you can do yourself. However, I'd recommend budgeting at least 1000 dollars for pre-production.

Remember: This is not a fixed fee. You're not going to spend it all at once. There's time.

2️⃣ Step Two: Savings Plan

I understand many people equate self-publishing to something you do if your budget is low and your timeline is tight. Or maybe others see it as a way to get their book out for a small group of people who might want it. Please note: While harder to cut through the noise, you can still be successful in indie publishing without a budget behind you or try and trade your equity and shoot for a traditional book deal. I recommend exploring all your options to make the best informed decision for you. Serious self-publishing takes serious financial planning.

This newsletter is focused on authors who are looking for commercial-like book launches that can stand up to books released in traditional press. This requires running your self-published book like it's own startup. You're saving for an independent career. Not just a single book.

Creating a Savings Plan:

Three thousand dollars is a lot to save, even over a nineteen to twenty month timeline. Let's make that number a little less scary with a savings plan.

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You do not have to spend a pre-production budget right away. In fact, you should be saving for your project in a separate savings account the entire time you're drafting. You might be saving in this account for 15 months before you ever touch it.

If you saved $50.00 a week for 19 months, you'd have $3800.00 in your project savings. If you saved $19.00 a week for 19 months, you'd have $1444.000 in your project savings. Both of these are good production budgets.

I'm no financial planner, but I can offer the advice that worked for me and the experiences that helped me make back my production budget in the first months of self publishing.

  • Buy a financial planning journal. (I use this one) You're probably saving for many other things in your life. Not just your author career. Having a journal can help you allocate which money goes where. For me, I was putting away smaller amounts while drafting and then started saving in larger amounts the closer I got to self-publishing.
  • Set aside a seperate savings account for your project. Even though I didn't do this, I know it's beneficial for many people to keep book money away from your other savings goals in a different account. Specifically, a high-yield savings account. Using compound interest in your favor can really help you out. If your money is just sitting there it should be working for you.
  • Read these books: Rich Dad Poor Dad / The Psychology of Money / Financial Feminist
  • Listen to these podcasts: Financial Feminist / Money with Katie / SmartMoney
  • Gamify the savings process. I save the most money when I create a savings challenge for myself to put little stickers on it every time I make a deposit. Finance bros and Dave Ramsey are shaking their fists in the air. But, seriously. It works. Bonus points if you motivate yourself with a reward that makes you want to get to the end. (For example, if I hit my $5000 savings goal, I'll use $700 to buy myself an iPad and put the rest away. This reward helped motivate me to reach my goal.)
  • Never use your emergency savings fund on your book production. I'd rather you take an extra six months perfecting your manuscript and saving than have you take money out for your emergency fund. That puts way too much pressure on publication day. This is a career investment. We don't need to rush.

Good money habits will help us in all areas of life! So don't put them on the backburner. As an indie author it's even more important to keep your money clean. When we get to author reinvestment strategies, it'll be SO NICE to have it organized.

3️⃣ Step Three: Create a Pre-Production Schedule

The last thing we will cover in this episode is making this into a pre-production schedule to help track your savings. Realistically estimate, based on your income and household factors, about how long it will take you to save the amount of money you need.

For example, if I estimate that I need $2000 dollars for my pre-production budget and I'm pretty sure I can save $50 a week, I can plan for a 40 week or longer pre-production schedule. So it might look like this:

  • Novel Drafts 1-3 Complete in 8 months / $1600 USD saved
  • 💵 Schedule & Pay for Developmental Editing / $800 Spent
  • Developmental Editing Process in 1.5 Months / $1900 USD saved / $800 spent / $1100 left
  • 💵 Schedule & Pay for Proofing Edits / $500 Spent
  • Proofing Process in 3 Weeks / $2050 USD saved / $1300 Spent / $600 Left
  • 💵 Find and reserve betareaders / DIY
  • 💵 Reserve and start process with Cover Designer / $500 USD
  • Betareading & Cover Design Process in 3 weeks / $2300 saved / $1800 Spent
      • Simultaneous Layout Design / DIY
  • Pay for ISBN Reservation / $150 USD

💸 Total Investment: $1950 / Total Leftover: $350

⏰ Total Pre-Production Time: 11 months

This example takes a little under a year for the full production process (which I'd consider quite fast). Also, you'll notice how in this example, we have money leftover that we can put into our marketing budget. (Which will we discuss next episode). We will not be calling it 'done' on the savings schedule until after we map out the marketing budget as well.

This is a financial plan, not a book plan.

Remember, remember, remember. This plan is flexible. You've got the ring, not the wedding date. Take your time getting there. Vegas isn't for everyone.

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Your pre-production plan is a flexible timeline, meaning it could shift and move about. It's not a book-planning tool; it's a financial-planning tool. Don't worry if it takes longer to do certain bookish activities. The overall idea is to give you a savings timeline, not a writing one.

TLDR: Healthy and seperate savings plans will help you become the successful author you want to be. You spend countless hours mapping your book's outline. Now, you need to spend a few mapping the financial plan as well.

Remember, consistency is king!

⏭️ PART TWO / EPISODE FOUR UP NEXT

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