How do I get by with writing?

[Article originally published in Italian. English translation made by Lapersonaditurno, with the additional revision of JoSeBach.]

Omniman said it all.
The rest of the article will give you some tips and will compare benefiting from a paid publisher vs self publishing vs traditional publishing, still without telling you which is the best choice. The final judgement is yours.
In Italy, releasing fantasy books isn’t going well. Why? The prejudice is mostly overcome and many aspiring authors are coming out so, what’s happening?

Investing on authors (who are being more and more numerous) is expensive and there’s no guarantee of success.
Also, many rookies are blocked by costs.

Let’s start from paid publishing houses: I saw plenty of new authors running for the hills just by hearing them. Some of those plan actual legalized scams, and the customer will have to deal with hundreds of copies which are not advertised or are abandoned in a stock. There are honest publishing houses, they will just tell you they aren’t going to promote you (or they will slightly do it), still they will actually check on your writings (even if in a few published books I saw some corny mistakes).

Having explained this, let’s talk about self publishing.
I’ll report some numbers: values won’t be 100% correct, they will make you set up your own idea. There’s better as there’s worse too.
Usually, a writing program costs hundreds of euros (the average is €300, even if I heard some of them can cost about €600). Helped by a paid editorial, editing a book costs, averagely, from 4 to 6 euros per page, which contains a maximum of 1800 words, including commas. An average novel must consist of more than 150 pages, so 600 euros will added, or even €900.

To set up a cover, professionals required a hundred euros but, if you’re lucky enough, with some services and simple design, 30 euros are enough. And the printing? Thanks to the capitalistic giant Amazon, known for its convenient prices (only 6 cents per page, alongside other costs), the price for a copy will go around… 10 euros. Print shops/paid publishing/whatever they are will give you a discount, depending on the numbers.

Even without having any accurate values, it’s obvious we’re not dealing with a little spending.

The book’s ISBN? It’s 80 euros + IVA.

What about ads? I can’t help with it, still, spamming your book everywhere is not a good strategy.

But we’ll regain the income, right?
NOPE.

This is about a short novel published by a rookie, probably from 120 to 180 pages long. Do you really think you can earn something selling the book at… 15 euros?
Don’t rely on it.

This step has also a disastrous side effect commercially: if less books are sold to publishing houses, less editors want to invest in new writers, so it becomes harder to be published by editors, more people will opt for self publishing… and so on. Icing on top, less popular you are, less mistakes you mustn’t do. A big shot can do a mistake, a newcomer can’t.

Ok, so let’s change strategy: the more we show ourselves capable, the more editors will notice us and we’ll starts writing and earning money!

All wrong: formally, you’ll have the right to the 6-10% of the profit. So, if a book costs 15 euros, with the 10% of the income (when they give it to you, that means you are relatives or close friends) you’ll gain 1,5 euros per sale. GROSS.

How is it possible there are no alternatives?

There are, however, social skills, a lot of energy and patience are required… and other abilities which go beyond a good ability to write.

To save money (and trees), you should publish through ebooks.

For advertisement you need to:

• Reach bloggers and propose your story; if they will write a good review of it, you can have a little ad (remember to always be respectful);

• Attend trade fairs and similar activities (for example: organize Dungeons and Dragons matches at comics exhibitions);

• Take advantage of ad services offered by some publishing houses;

• Open a blog and try to make it interesting

The first three points won’t be for free.
To make it simple: it will be hard!

Fanwriter91