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How I Raised $400 to Publish My Second Book · The Daily Writer

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, welcome to the Daily Writer, where we help writers become authors of their own lives.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Way back in the spring of 2015, I was working on a draft of my second book, which was called The Artist's Suitcase: 26 Essentials for the Creative Journey.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as I was doing that, I realized all of a sudden, hey, I'm going to need to pay for editing and cover design for this book, so I need to figure that out.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: There was just one small little problem at the time, and that was I was teaching college and I didn't really have the extra money to do that.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was really intent on having a professional editor and designer work on the book to make it be the best book possible.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: But again, I didn't have the cash.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now that was far earlier in my journey than it is today, but even then, I held to this firm principle, which was I was not going to go cheap by editing and designing the book myself.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I was lacking the cash to invest in this self-published book, there was one thing that I did have, which was a lot of other books in my college office.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books that I had accumulated when I was younger, but also during my college teaching career.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So in order to raise cash to self-publish my artist suitcase book well, I decided to have a big book sale.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I got a big six-foot table, like they have laying around in colleges and organizations all the time.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I got one of those tables and I set it up in the hallway outside of our faculty offices.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I filled that table with all the books that I was willing to let go of.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that included specialty books like commentaries, Bible study tools, and also Greek and Hebrew reference works.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, at that time in my teaching career, keep in mind that I was moving away from teaching courses that needed those tools, like Greek and Hebrew resources and reference works and things like that.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I was happy to exchange those resources for cash.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: If memory serves correct, I made around$400 from that book sale.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't quite enough to cover what I needed for professional editing and cover design back in those days, but it was close enough to get me most of the way there.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, keep in mind, this was over 10 years ago, and pricing for editing and design have gone way up since then, as they should.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, looking back on this situation, I realized that what I really wasn't solving was a money problem.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was solving a resourcefulness problem.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what happens in the life of being an author or really just life in general, is that we have problems and we've got to figure out how we're going to solve those problems.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So my solution in that situation was to raise the cash by selling some stuff.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But there are some other things that I certainly could have done.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to self-publish a book, you're going to need to do the same thing.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to have to figure out how you're going to cover the expenses of things like interior layout, cover design, editing, proofreading, those kinds of things.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to share with you five very simple suggestions for how to pay for self-publishing your book if you're a little bit short on cash.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is very simply sell some stuff.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is what I did back in that situation, but you don't have to necessarily sell books.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: You would be surprised at all the stuff that you own that other people would happily pay for.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can go through your home, your office, or your car or garage, and you can identify things that you can sell on eBay or Facebook marketplace.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, you can do some client work.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're already writing and creating, that means you can have other people pay you for those exact same skills.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's editing, design work, ghostwriting, or something else.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, if you're good at something, somebody else will pay you to do it for them as well.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, you can barter with an editor or a designer.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be honest, I don't really recommend this as a first option, and I have rarely done this kind of thing myself.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that being said, if you have a good relationship with a designer or an editor and you have something that they need, they might be willing to consider this bartering type of arrangement.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, do some odd jobs.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's no shame at all in doing something like DoorDash, mowing lawns, or shoveling snow, whatever the heck needs to be done to raise some quick capital.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that no type of work is beneath you if you simply need the cash.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I have immense respect for anybody who does what they need to do to survive.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would love to see more of this do whatever it takes type of attitude in writers and creatives, because no type of work is beneath us if we need the cash.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, number five, cut some expenses.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: We all have subscriptions and recurring expenses that we don't really need to have.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I would happily cut out several of our streaming service subscriptions, but I think my family would probably rebel against me, especially if I cut the Hallmark channel.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to choose your battles.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you have that extra money, you can use that saved money for self-publishing.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is there's lots of ways to make quick cash.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Legally, of course, we want to stick to legal means of making money here on this podcast.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have some other ways of making quick cash that have worked for you, I would love to hear about those.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can shoot me an email at Kent at KentSanders.net.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Most of all, remember that your success as a writer and as an author has a lot to do with your willingness to find solutions to the problems that you're facing.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Be a person who refuses to let obstacles stand in the way of your dreams.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is authorship in action.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for listening today.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Keep writing, keep showing up, and I'll see you tomorrow.