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Fundraising an Author: Self-Publishing and Funding Your Novel



I am sure most of you would have heard of Crowdfunding. It is when individuals ask for small donations to reach a larger financial goal that contributes towards the cost of a project or raises money for causes. Writers for the last few years have been using crowdfunding to fund the expenses involved in their manuscripts and to self publish.


Writers are taking control of their finances and crowdfunding their own projects. This is a fairly new development in the publishing sector, which has seen a rise in self-publishing since the 1980s. There was greater access to printers and new software which benefited writers. We see a lot of writers now publishing their own novels on Amazon and printing the books on demand, instead of in bulk which we’d have seen beforehand in these traditional publishing firms. 


Self-publishing hasn't always been so popular. Before the '80s, publishing firms would provide editors for a select few writers and (usually) only their novels were published. Britannica describes how this process dates back to publishing firms from the 1700s, which mass-produced novels. These press machines were unavailable to the general public, so professional authors would sell their works to them, and they would print and distribute for profit. Similar to crowdfunding today, authors had patrons who often made contributions to ensure the writer could continue to author works.  

 

Today, writers still have the option to publish traditionally but can have a lot more control over manuscripts when self-publishing. Having more control over a manuscript is any writer's dream, but alongside this control is a responsibility and expense. Not everyone can cover these costs, which is where crowd raising comes into play. 

 

Having more control over a manuscript is any writer's dream, but alongside this control is a responsibility and expense. Not everyone can cover these costs, which is where crowd raising comes into play. 

 

If we think about the services a writer has to pay when pursuing a project, these can include professionals such as illustrators (especially for children's books), digital artists, various editors, proofreaders, and beta readers. Potentially, there may be an expense when marketing the novel once it has been completed. 

 

Here are some average prices for each of these professionals:  

 

Editor -- $30 / an hour 
Digital artist -- $25 / an hour 
Illustrator -- $16.26 / an hour
Proofreader -- $20/ an hour 

 

It is important that the average cost has been calculated, using beginner prices. This could result in thousands of dollars in feesassuming all professionals involved only charge the above prices and only work for an average number of hours per page. It all depends on how much work you have for the professionals to deal with and which ones you need to use. 


Professionals, such as freelance editors, can charge on average $30 an hour -- that's just beginners! According to Upwork, this figure only increases as the editor becomes more experienced and well known within their community. Digital artists have been estimated as charging between $50 to $70 as beginners, which would be necessary for a cover. These figures shed some light as to how much the overall cost of publishing a professional novel may come to. This isn't really pocket money for the average person.  

 

Not all writers can afford the costs associated with publishing. People who self-publish novels come from a range of backgrounds, for example, Stephen King worked as a janitorSelf-published author, E. L. James is the second most successful self-published author and has sold more than 100,000,000 copies, despite being a manager's assistant at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield.
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