The experience of writing a book

With today's technology, writing a book does not cost me much. The paper book is printed on demand, so you do not have to print a lot and store them. The tools to build a book are easy to learn/use and save us a lot of time and effort.

Due to many new books competing (basically every one who has plenty of time should enjoy writing a book), it is hard to make a buck if this is your first book and/or you're a nobody like myself. Finding good reviewers is tough; one is working on 8 books to review. So, most of us do it for fun especially you are holding a printed book in your name. I find it enjoyable and relaxing in writing the book. It could be an excellent hobby for most.

It will take some time even the tools are quite easy. The experience is fun for me. My son designed a nice cover for me. I forgot the spine and the back cover.  I paid $100 for proof reading. It was outsourced to India and the job is just so-so; she did not expect repeated business. I found many errors from my own proof reading.

Besides the $25 for 'extensive marketing' and another $25 for 'reviews' that could be a total loss, I spend about $3.5 for each of my book I order. The total cost could be less than $200.

The printed book is fine. The Kindle version needs a lot of changes due to the smaller screen and the format program from Word to Kindle needs some works.

Marketing is the key. I take advantage of free marketing by putting comments on related articles in the web. I treat spending big money in marketing the book as an investment. Until I see the return, I will not risk a lot.

I am working on another book on investment. If I do not sell many, it will be for my own use. If I do not sell many, it could be the most useful book as the strategies described in the book are not widely used. Will improve the book with new articles free to the current readers in the web.

I know why most writers are starving. I'm glad I do not need money from these ebooks. I do not have to spend much time as they're already written in my blog. Financially it comes ahead with a lot of tax deductible expenses.