What Will It Cost You to Get Published as a Book Author?

An overview of the hidden fees for hybrid and traditional publishing

There are three things that any endeavor can cost us: money, time, and resources. If you’re a writer with a finished manuscript looking to get published, there are a lot of options to consider to produce a professional-level book.

As an award-winning editor who has worked with several clients, I’ve seen firsthand the costs that go into making an author’s book stand out in today’s very competitive world of publishing.

In a previous post, I unfolded the hidden costs of self-publishing in detail based on my experience. The story gained visibility and received interesting comments. In this post, I will introduce other publishing models which you may also find interesting.

Aside from self-publishing, there are two other options that many authors consider: hybrid and traditional book deals. But what will each one cost you? Let’s start with a look at hybrid publishing and break down what you’ll be paying for it out of pocket.

Hybrid Publishing

Hybrid publishing is very similar to self-publishing but with more cachet. As a hybrid-published author, you’re under the umbrella of a reputable publishing house imprint, have a group of professionals helping your book make it to print, as well as having one-stop shopping for everything else.

Some extra services can include author website design, merchandise, audiobook production, and in-house illustrators for picture books.

There are many companies out there that will take the legwork out of this whole publishing process. They’ll accept a lot more manuscripts than a traditional publisher, but the author has to pay upfront for their professional services.

Basically, these companies offer all the services to take your book to professional standards — editing, book cover design, and even marketing — but they offer those services in-house.

Reputable hybrid publishers require a certain level of writing skill, just like traditional publishers, and they will reject manuscripts that don’t meet their standards. And, just like traditional publishers, you’ll sign a contract with them to get your book published.

Contracts with hybrid publishers vary. Some will take a percentage of each sale in addition to fees the authors pay upfront — such as 50% or less — but some of them have 100% of the sales going to authors. Many of them also have additional services they offer.

Prices, as you might guess, also vary. A basic ground floor package might cost around $5,000-$7,000 and include standard editing (might be copyediting, but not developmental), book cover design, layout, and publishing to print and eBook (generally in paperback — hardcover would cost extra).

Moving up from a basic package, the average costs most authors pay are between $9,000-$20,000. And some of the highest-end ones cost $125,000-$250,000 to publish a single book (yes, you read that number right).

Some examples of reputable hybrids and their various costs

These prices are approximated.

• Atmosphere Press: $5,000 or more, depending on add-ons
• Palmetto Publishing: $11,000-$17,500
• Advantage Forbes Books: $25,000-$250,000

Traditional Publishing

Most authors generally look at costs calculated in monetary value when it comes to hybrid publishing.

So, what will traditional publishing cost you?

Nothing.

Nada.

Zilch…

… in terms of money. However, there IS a hidden cost, and that’s in terms of time.

Unlike self-publishing and hybrid publishing, where you can set the schedule on when you want your book to come out and how you’d like it to look, traditional publishing requires an investment of time. And you’re not usually the one calling the shots, but often relying on a number of experts in the field to call the shots for you.

Querying to find an agent

While some small presses accept submissions directly from authors, most of the larger traditional publishers don’t accept submissions from authors who don’t have an agent. The bad part of this news? The odds of an author getting an agent are 1 in 6,000.

And it’s not an instantaneous process, even if you do get an agent. The average wait time to get a response from a literary agent is 1–3 months, although a number of agencies tell authors not to re-query them before 3-6 months have passed. A typical rule of thumb is to prepare a list of 50 agents and query them in batches of 5–8. When you get a rejection, then send out a new query.

Some agencies won’t even send out rejections but post on their submission guidelines: “If you haven’t heard back from us in 3 months, consider it a rejection.” So, you’ll have to keep track of which ones will send rejections and which ones use a time period to serve as a rejection.

Doing the math, that means it would take about a year or more to work through your entire agent list, plus the added wait time of 6 months on top of that to follow up with agents you haven’t heard from. The hope is that one of these agents will bite and offer you representation.

And what if none of those 50 agents offer to represent you? Then, you have to start over, make a new list, and start querying again.

Other routes to publication and finding an agent

One way around the agent wait time to publication is to enter contests (I’ve written about my experience winning a contest that led me to get a book deal) or go to literary events where you can pitch your novel directly to agents in special one-on-one sessions.

Both of these options tend to have fees attached — sending your work to contests can have fees of $15–65 and up, and often, the competition can be pretty steep — which means you’d probably be submitting to multiple contests.

Pitching at literary festivals often has both a fee to attend the festival itself as well as a fee for the special agent session, not to mention the cost of travel, lodging, etc. Going to a single literary festival with the intent of pitching to your dream agent could cost you $500–$1500+.

Will it help you get a publishing deal/agent faster? Possibly, depending on the impression you make. I’ve had friends and clients who found their agents through both avenues. But it’s no guarantee that it will work any better than querying agents from home, which is free to do.

Heading toward publication

While snagging an agent is cause to celebrate, it’s unfortunately not the final step in the journey to traditional publishing. Agents will often offer editing suggestions on their clients’ manuscripts so that authors will be rewriting their manuscripts before submission to publishers.

A friend of mine had to rewrite her book multiple times because her agent wanted to pitch it in three categories to try to snag the best offer — middle grade, YA, and adult. In the end, her book was published under the category of adult fiction, but it took months of editing to get it there.

Submission to publishers isn’t the final step, either — that’s when the waiting game begins again. You’re put back into a pile that the publisher has to go through, and it’s no guarantee of getting a deal. Agents will usually start at the top and work their way down, so you might not be getting a contract from the Big 5.

Two authors I know signed up with agents fairly quickly, but unfortunately, no publishers would bite on their novels. So, they had to go back to the drawing board, scrap their first book, and start a completely new novel. While their second books did end up getting published, and their agents helped land those deals, it’s a tough situation to face when your first book is dead in the water after years of effort.

The cost of time

While there are exceptions to the rule, where an author goes from agent to a publishing deal in 30 days, they ARE definitely the exception. Most often, it’s a long haul that takes years, from sending out your first query to getting an offer of publication. Traditional publishing tends to be slow, too — from acceptance by a publisher to actually holding your book in your hands can take 1–2 years or longer.

So, while you’re not paying out of pocket, you’re paying in time for traditional publishing— anywhere from 2 years or under (warp speed) to 4 years (average) to 6+ years (hey, it happens).

Conclusions

To wrap up these comparisons, the best takeaway is that there are hidden costs for each type of publishing, so it really depends on what you want to spend, the amount of time you want to wait, and how much you’d like to be involved in the process.

Self-publishing and, to a certain extent, hybrid publishing gives you a lot of control over the finished product in terms of time and output… but at a higher monetary cost. You pay to play, or, in this case, you pay to get published.

Traditional publishing is the opposite — it’s a long haul. While it might cost you nothing out of pocket, settle in for a long wait as you go through the steps of finding an agent and having your agent submit to publishers and publications.

What is right for you and your book depends on how much — and what— you want to spend.

I recently came across an interesting story titled How I Sold 1,000+ Books in a Month with Minimal Investment First Time, by prolific writer and book author Dr Mehmet Yildiz, who went through traditional publishing for many years. However, he changed his strategy to hybrid and self-publishing in 2021 and reaped some monetary benefits.

I look forward to your feedback and learning from your experiences, too.

Thank you for reading my story.

Happy writing, editing, and publishing…