Self-Publishing on a Shoestring

[skeletor]

Pardon me if this isn't the best spot for this post, but I've been giving a lot of thought to this question for awhile and wanted to pick your brains!

If you woke up tomorrow and were utterly broke but still wanted (for whatever reason) to keep self-publishing, what's the cheapest way to could go about it?

Hardware-wise, a device capable of word processing can be found just about anywhere. Ancient computers will run Word or OpenOffice or LibreOffice. So will tablets and even some phones. Even a barebones Raspberry Pi could handle that part. I've even thought about utilizing the computers at my local library (which would be free).

Now, what about formatting the books? What's the cheapest but most professional way to go about it with limited computing power? Plugging one's document into Draft2Digital's free maker seems to me like the best way to get a publishable product. The device you're using will just have to be powerful enough to access their website. (I'm pretty tech illiterate, so I don't know how fancy D2D's website is, but I imagine that even some old computers and miniPCs can run it, yes?) Here, too, even a public library computer could work, possibly.

Once you have a formatted Epub, you can basically take that anywhere. As long as you can access KDP, D2D, etc, you can distribute it.

Cover art, of course, is a different animal. Making your own covers can be very difficult, though cheap/free stock art and Gimp (also free) can yield good results if you're tenacious.

Perhaps this thread is very silly, but if you were down and out (but still obsessed with continuing your self-publishing journey) what would that look like? I've always prided myself on making decent money in this business without putting a lot into it, but it occurs to me that a massive computer failure or similar could put me in a tight spot for a little while, and I love planning contingencies. If you want to make the dream work, just how little can you get by on, technologically?

[Post-Crisis D]

Now, what about formatting the books? What's the cheapest but most professional way to go about it with limited computing power? Plugging one's document into Draft2Digital's free maker seems to me like the best way to get a publishable product. The device you're using will just have to be powerful enough to access their website. (I'm pretty tech illiterate, so I don't know how fancy D2D's website is, but I imagine that even some old computers and miniPCs can run it, yes?) Here, too, even a public library computer could work, possibly.

There's also Sigil.  I can run it on a 9 year-old Mac but YMMV.

[Matthew]

The trade off is that you have to spend more of your time learning how to do things because you cannot afford certain tools or professionals.

For ebooks, Sigil is useful for touching up a book, but as far as I can tell it's not good for trying to make your entire book in. Also requires understanding the underlying code (XHTML/CSS). Yes, there are some free online tools that you can import your document into. Reedsy will do it too.

For software on your computer, Calibre can make an epub from a document, but it's very barebones. LibreOffice Writer can be used both for writing your manuscript and creating an epub file from it. Basic formatting is kept (alignment, bold/italic/underline, paragraph indentation).

If you're willing to go Amazon exclusive, you can use Kindle Create as well.

I think cover art is the most difficult because you either need to be good at photography or drawing, and even then fonts are a separate issue. If you want to make a cover yourself I would look at licensing a font (some cheap ones can be found for $10 or less, especially on sale). Stock photos can be had for around $0.50-1.00 each, potentially less on sale as well. But while simple to put some text on a cover, you'll probably still need to spend the time and learn the skill of some photo editing so you can start combining multiple stock photos together, and better learn how to do typography.

While I'm sure some free fonts and photos exist, remember you have to contend with Amazon. Licensing gives you a higher degree of confidence that the seller really owns the rights, and that the rights are properly granted. I've definitely seen some "free" stock photos that were blatantly stolen from elsewhere, and I think this also might be why a lot of Canva-created covers have problems on Amazon lately. For fonts, you may be able to find something free directly from the Foundry that created it. That is what I would need to feel comfortable using it. (And still, check the license that you can use it commercially, and if it allows use in print or to be embedded in an ebook if that's what you're doing)

For print, I think your best bet would be doing it by hand in Scribus. You'll have a double whammy of a learning curve if you've never done print by hand before (e.g. in Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher) as well as trying to learn how to use Scribus itself. You could also try to more extensively format within LibreOffice Writer and export as PDF.

Again, if Amazon exclusive, Kindle Create can supposedly create files for print, but I've never used the tool to see how flexible it is or what the results look like.

[Post-Crisis D]

There are plenty of open source fonts that can be freely used.  But, you want to make sure to obtain them from reputable sources to be sure they are open source.  Sometimes, you can also check the foundry's website to ensure that it is open source.

[Anarchist]

I'd get a part-time gig, save up $250, and buy Vellum. It's a small price to pay for the convenience it offers.

If you're not on a Mac, buy Atticus.

[LilyBLily]

I have met people whose only out-of-pocket expense was the art for the cover, and that still holds true.

If you don't have cover design skills or don't want to learn them, consider licensing the appropriate fonts and photo(s) and then turning to a cheap service like Fiverr to get the cover assembled by someone who actually knows what kerning is. A title whose type has been kerned looks way better than one amateurishly self-done. But do not trust a designer on Fiverr to license anything; bring your own licensed pieces to the project.

You also could search pre-made cover designs to find something that speaks to your genre. That would probably cost you twice as much, but usually you can trust that the cover elements have been properly licensed.

Edited to add: If too broke to buy a cover, then read up online about how to take a photo right and make it look good as a cover. Then read up on how to do type correctly, search for free fonts, and assemble it all yourself. Your total cost then would only be time. 

[The Bass Bagwhan]

My take is that if you have access to Word in any shape or form, and you're writing text-only books (no illustrations) then it's all you need for writing and formatting. Amazon and others will happily process a .docx file and you don't need epub, although there is a free plugin for Word that will create an epub — but the results are generally too flawed for Amazon to accept.

As others have said, cover design is your greatest challenge creatively  because covers are so important to marketing. Gimp is a great tool but with a learning curve. However, you could import a photo of your little finger and Gimp can turn into something bizarre and interesting.

Marketing without cost, on the other hand, is a real obstacle. You need to get engaged in all kinds of online platforms including Substack NOW, because most don't accept newcomers suddenly appearing to promote their book. They expect long-term engagement and familiarity before they tolerate self-promotion.

The last option is approaching publishers who will deal with all the above if your MS is a piece of genius.

[Bill Hiatt]

Substack does have the virtue of being free to use AND not having any advertising, so there's no advertising to buy. As we've discussed before, it also can in a pinch replace the author's website and newsletter provider. Web presence, email, and a fairly large and receptive audience--all for free. It may not work for everyone, but there isn't a huge bar for entry. I guess you do need decent internet, but otherwise, there's a lot of free stuff there.

[Lorri Moulton]

I don't have decent internet (at times) and it still works. 

My advice would be to choose a social media platform and start posting.  It doesn't have to be all of them, just find one and see if you can start getting some followers.  Post the Substack link...and vice versa.  See what happens.

[Gregg Bell]

You said it, LibreOffice. Post said Sigil. I second that. Compose in LIbreOffice .odt. Convert .odt in LibreOffice to .html. Open html in Sigil and format into .epub. And Sigil makes superb epubs. And LibreOffice makes superb pdfs for the paperback.

PS. And quit thinking so negative! 

[She-la-te-da]

I started this thing so broke it wasn't even funny. It was, I don't eat during the day because I couldn't afford enough food, paying bills was iffy some months, hope the car doesn't break down, or anyone gets sick, because we'll be in deep hurt.

I had the Internet through my son, an old computer wit Word, and time to research. I learned to do covers on GIMP. I learned to do formatting through looking at stuff on the web, especially Smashword's guide (I didn't do KDP until a few months later). It wasn't easy. It took a lot of time to learn how to do stuff myself, and do it well enough to sell anything at all.

At any rate, if I were starting today, I'd write in Word, use D2D to format, GIMP for covers, and focus on ebooks through KDP. I wouldn't worry about print or audio, IS, or anything else until I got good enough to sell ebooks that would cover the price of anything else. I would have learned how to do proper covers first, how to write a good description, how formatting should be.

This would mean a crap ton of work. If it turned out I couldn't do covers, I'd look into cheap but appropriate premade covers, and try to save up for them. This means not publishing as quickly, most likely, but that's how it works.

To be honest, I'm not sure it would be possible today to start and spend no money at all. Ads really need to be done, and people like me who have no social media skills wouldn't have that option, unless we could learn to be good at one platform or another. Most people can't edit their work, they can't do covers, formatting seems to be an issue, though for ebooks, the simpler the better.

So, I say that while it's still technically possible, it's going to be a long, hard haul through learning to write first, and then be a good publisher, because in the end, the publishing really isn't that different, it's just all on us.