Most authors don’t lose momentum because they “aren’t good at marketing.” They lose momentum because they spend everything getting the book finished, then realize they can’t afford the work that helps readers discover it. We’re Joel Pitney and Sayde Walker, and we’re walking you through the five book launch budgeting principles we’ve used for years to help authors stop guessing and start planning with clarity.

We talk about budgeting for the entire book publishing process, not just the fun parts. That means the real costs of writing support, developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading, plus the publishing essentials like cover design, interior formatting for print and ebooks, and distribution setup. Then we get honest about the marketing side: author platform building, promotion, time, energy, and strategy that needs to start early and stay consistent.

We also dig into a question every self-published author faces: what should you DIY and what should you pay experts to handle? We share a grounded way to decide, especially when your budget is limited. And we address the hard expectation shift that can save your sanity: you probably won’t make your money back right away on a first book, so plan for the long game. Finally, we explain our “33% for marketing” rule, not as a magic formula, but as a guardrail that forces you to fund discovery, not just production.

If you want a book launch budget that actually supports sales over time, listen through and take notes. Subscribe, share this with an author friend, and leave a review so more writers can find the show.

Why Book Launch Budgets Fail

Joel 0:10

Welcome to If I’m Being Honest, Straight Talk About Book Publishing and Promotion. My name is Joel Pitney.

Sayde 0:16

And I’m Sayde Walker.

Joel 0:19

And today we are going to be talking about one of our favorite topics, which is book launch budgeting. So we had the idea for this several years ago. We wrote an article about this, and it’s a presentation I’ve given at a bunch of different workshops, including most recently the Women in Publishing Summit. And it we realized that a lot of people that we work with, they’ll come to us at some point in the process. You know, whether it’s time to market the book, they already have it published, or maybe they’ve uh already done a bunch of developmental editing or copy editing and they just need to do the cover design or whatever, right? And we started to notice that a lot of people don’t approach their book and their entire book process with a budget in mind. Um, and what ends up happening is they don’t have enough money left over for important things that maybe they hadn’t planned for, or they think something is gonna cost less than it does and they’re not quite ready. Right.

Sayde 1:16

Um I think another another thing that we would see a lot, especially, you know, uh a few years ago, is authors who would say, Well, I don’t have any budget right now for marketing the book. We’ll just see how it does, see if it takes off, and then maybe I’ll throw some money at marketing. Or once I’ve made my money back in sales, you know, after the publishing process, then we can, you know, we can talk about book marketing. And so one of the things that we wanted to address up front with people was you need to budget for the whole process. And you need to think about these things, publishing and promotions and marketing, kind of as one package.

Joel 1:55

Absolutely. And so one of the things that we often talk about when we’re talking about book launch budgeting is that in any other dimension of our lives, budgeting is pretty straightforward. Everybody, you wouldn’t ever start a business without a budget. You wouldn’t ever start a fiscal year without a budget in a nonprofit. Um, and you know, most people have a home budget, right? No one, very few people, you know, you listen to Dave Ramsey’s podcast or or or whoever your favorite financial person is, and everybody says you need a budget. You need to figure out how much you’re gonna spend on things, how much you’re gonna, how much you’re gonna save, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So um, and yet we find that when it comes to books, a lot of people um forget about some of the common sense things they use in other dimensions of their lives. Um, but the good news is running a book launch is just like those things, right? And you need a budget

The Free Budgeting Ebook Preview

Joel 2:42

for it. So that so we decided that we would put together an uh a full ebook, which we’ll put a link. People can download it for free. Um, we have a whole ebook all about how to budget for your book launch. Um, and today we wanted to go into sort of the first half of that ebook, which is really focusing more on the book launch budgeting principles.

Sayde 3:03

Yeah, and these are principles, Joel, that you came up with uh, you know, after you’ve been doing this for decades. And we published an article on this on Jane Friedman’s website. Um and it, you know, and as Joel mentioned, we’ve given workshops and presentations on this, and and it just kind of keeps coming up as a really relevant topic for people uh as they as they sort of start this journey in publishing a book, in writing and publishing a book, um, that you know, you need to you need to budget for the entire you need to budget for the entire project so that you’re not flying, flying blind.

Joel 3:35

Awesome. Good. So we’re we’re gonna dive into these five principles. Um and you know, for those of you out there who don’t like principles and philosophical things, and you’re like, well, just tell me the facts and give me the practical stuff, don’t worry. Uh, if you download the ebook, we have like a super comprehensive analysis of every single element of the book launch process from writing to publishing to marketing, and what are expected budget ranges, how you can look for areas to save money, et cetera. And we even have a do-it-yourself budget worksheet. So download that. We’ll put a link in all the comments. But um I am gonna encourage everybody to really take these principles on board. And the reason I like principles in most things, but especially when it comes to book launch budgeting, is that there is no one size fits all solution. There’s no template for budgeting for a book launch. Everybody’s different. Your book’s gonna be different, your genre is gonna be different, your financial situation is gonna be different, everything’s gonna be different. And so I always, it’s I it’s like teach a person to fish, they’ll eat for a lifetime, give a person to fish, they’ll eat for a day. So I always feel like that way of principles. If you can internalize and understand some of these principles, it’ll help you to then build your own personalized budget. So um, without further ado, let’s dive in.

Principle One Budget Every Dimension

Joel 4:52

So, budget princing number principle number one is you need to budget for all dimensions of your book launch. And we talked about this a little bit already. This is kind of the whole point of needing a budget, but um you need to make sure that there, that you understand what are all the ingredients, right? And so uh just at a very high level, there’s the writing and editing side. So that’s the creative process, right? So uh, and when it comes to writing and editing, what are the things you need to budget for? Well, when it comes to writing, there’s things like there’s things like uh some people hire ghostwriters. That’s something that I do. But most people listening to this podcast probably aren’t going to be hiring a ghostwriter, but you might work with a developmental editor. You might pay to go on a writer’s retreat, you might have a membership to a writer’s organization, right? So there’s an investment in the writing side. And then there’s also, you also have to make sure that you’re budgeting for a developmental editor, right? Someone that you can work with. And then you want to have someone who can copy edit the book and then you also and ultimately proof the book. So these are all things that you’re gonna need to make take into consideration. Um then when it comes to the publishing of the book, there’s all the design elements, right? So cover design, interior design, creating it, uh, you know, an interior design that’s gonna look beautiful in print and also uh be flowable in ebooks, um, someone who understands how to do that kind of work. And then also setting yourself up for the right kind of uh distribution channels, depending on what you’re gonna use. So there’s a lot of different dimensions there. And then lastly, there’s the whole marketing dimension, which we we define as sort of um uh building your author platform, which is having some kind of content that you’re publishing on a regular basis, and then and then running different types of promotions. So um we have a lot on this, and again, the ebook has more detail, but those are the general areas of a book launch that you need to make sure that you’re budgeting or at least ascribing some numbers to.

Sayde 6:43

Yeah, and and uh at least thinking about, right? Like, like how how do these different elements fit within your book um uh process, both the launch and also the production of that book? Because, you know, authors who wait to think about marketing until the very end, either they’ve run out of money or they’ve run out of time or they’ve run out of steam. And so we this is why this is principle number one, you have to think about and budget for every aspect of your launch. You’re not gonna leave anything, leave anything up to chance.

Joel 7:15

Absolutely. All right. So we’re gonna dive into the second principle. But before we do that, I just want to remind everybody if you’re enjoying this episode and you enjoy our podcast, please uh subscribe on whatever platform you listen to your podcast, follow us, rate, and review us. That helps us reach more people. Our mission here is to educate and empower authors. So if you uh subscribe and you also um spread the love and make comments and that kind of thing, it helps us reach more folks.

Sayde 7:40

So absolutely. All right.

Principle Two DIY Versus Experts

Sayde 7:43

Principle number two DIY what you can and hire experts for what you can’t. So, you know, this is this is uh as you’re building your budget, there’s there’s going to be things about the book launch process that maybe you feel comfortable taking on yourself. Uh, maybe, you know, DIY obviously means do it yourself. And we live in a DIY world and there’s all kinds of resources out there for things that we can DIY. So, you know, maybe there’s a piece of this that you feel comfortable um doing yourself. Maybe it’s just the writing of the book. Joel mentioned ghostwriters earlier. There are authors out there who want to tell their life story, but they are not, you know, comfortable writing and crafting that story. So they’ll hire out a ghostwriter. Maybe for you, you are a writer, you love the writing and the creative process, but you’re not an editor. You’re not, you’re definitely not a developmental editor. Um, you know you’re gonna need a designer to, you know, work on your book cover. Hopefully, someone that’s experienced in that genre who understands, you know, design principles when it comes to book covers and how books are sold online and in person. So there’s there’s a lot of different areas of expertise when it comes to the production and the marketing of a book. And it’s really silly to think that any one person is going to be an expert in all of those things. Like we are not experts in all of those things. Um, we’re experts in in some of it. And then we have, you know, we have a team of editors who work for us and we have designers who work for us. So uh kind of knowing where your strengths are and and what you enjoy doing in the process, and then hiring experts for everything else. Because, you know, one of the things that we pride ourselves on when authors come to us is our books don’t look self-published, right? We self-publish in a way that doesn’t look self-published. And so that means that we are taking into account all of the design elements of that book. You know, when we’re doing the interior, when we’re designing the table of contents, when we’re integrating photos, how are those going to work on in the ebook presentation? Uh, making sure hyperlinks are linked properly. There’s there’s a lot of technical pieces, there’s a lot of artistic pieces in making a book look and feel uh not self-published, look really professional, I should say. And uh and so just you know, taking those things into consideration as you’re as you’re moving through these pieces and figuring out what are you comfortable doing yourself, where do your strengths lie, and where do you need to hire some help.

Joel 10:14

Absolutely. And on the flip side of that, um most people aren’t gonna have infinite budgets, right? And so even if you’d like to hire for every single aspect of the book launch process, you may not be able to afford to. And so it’s critical that you find which elements of the process you think you could do a decent job of of doing yourself, or maybe finding sort of a discount version in certain areas. And so part of what we’ve done in the ebook is uh we’ve gone through every single process, given you budget ranges, and then talked about opportunities for cutting quarters and doing it yourself based on certain criteria. So you should definitely check that out and that’ll help you make those decisions.

Sayde 10:58

Absolutely.

Joel 11:00

Um, all

Principle Three Plan A Marathon

Joel 11:01

right. So the third principle of book launch budgeting is plan for a marathon, not a sprint. So this is similar to the first one, which is you need to plan for all the aspects. But um, the reason we made this its own principle is that a lot of people think about a book launch as quite finite, right? There’s sort of like there’s the writing of the book, which takes a certain amount of time, then you publish it, and then it comes out and then it’s got a certain amount of shelf life, right? And so people will think, oh, well, this is gonna be a six-month process, or some people think that the first month of the book, well, after the book is launched is gonna make or break it. So that’s where they kind of, they, they kind of plan all their, they put all their money and their energy, right? But in our experience, um uh this is a long game, right? Um, whether it’s whether you’re gonna do one book or you’re gonna do multiple books, right? Um, if you’re serious about it and you really want to build a successful um book or writing career, you’re gonna need to do this for a long time. And we’re not talking months, we’re talking years, okay? It takes a long time to build a readership for your book. It often requires either multiple books or finding new ways to keep talking about that same book and building new ventures based on the intellectual property in that book, depending on what your genre is. So you really need to plan on this being a long game. And so when you’re building your budget, uh that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to build a five-year budget, but it does mean that you shouldn’t take all the money that you were planning for this book and and have it basically run to the launch of the book plus three months, right? You need to be ready for there to be an ongoing process. And Sayde mentioned this earlier when we were talking about the first principle. But um, a lot of people we talk to will sort of plan, they’ll they’ll kind of think about it like uh starting a company, and they’ll be like, they’ll get their seed money, and then if they can earn enough, then they’ll use it to build the next phase of their company. So they think about a book very similarly. All right, we’ll invest a bunch of money to get this to market, and then hopefully the sales in the first quarter, two quarters, or three quarters will generate enough money to then continue to fund the the venture. And that usually doesn’t work that way, which we’ll talk about in the next principle. So um, you need to be ready to invest your money over a long period of time and be doing this for a very long time if you’re serious about success.

Sayde 13:21

Yeah. I think it was uh Penny Sansvery who said on her podcast, author tips, book marketing and author tips, that, you know, the the moment that you stop marketing your book is is when you stop selling your book, right? And so uh making sure that that your marketing efforts are sustained, both in what you can afford and also just what you have time and capacity for is part of this planning period. Because if you are thinking, you know, like Joel said, if you’re thinking, oh, the we’ll launch the book and it will take off, it’ll we’ll earn a bunch of money, and then from there we can we’ll kind of determine how to keep going, it is likely not going to be successful. And that’s gonna feel pretty crushing. And so if you can, if you can think about your launch in terms of at least a year, if not more, then it’s gonna feel a little bit more sustainable. It’s gonna feel like you you you still have some some skin in the game and are still um, you know, you’re you’re still in charge of your in charge of your book’s success. Absolutely.

Principle Four Expect Slow Payback

Sayde 14:18

Principle number four is don’t expect to make your money back right away. Um, so this is uh this is probably I don’t somewhat controversial or somewhat sometimes hard to hear, but you’re you’re not gonna make your money back self-publishing your first book, at least not in the first three, six, twelve months. And, you know, so we think that that point is important enough to drive home that we made it one of our own budgeting principles, which means when you are budgeting, you you have to be thinking about, like we’ve said over and over, you have to be thinking about the whole project from you know soup to nuts, so that you’re not, you don’t leave yourself in a hole of, well, when I start to make money, then I can do X, Y, and Z. Um, because with that first book, you know, we we say this often. Um, we’ve had other experts on our podcast come on and say this. It’s really hard to make money with only one book.

Joel 15:15

And we’re not talking about just the self-publishing industry or the indie publishing industry, right? Uh most tradition 80% of traditionally published books don’t sell enough copies to earn back their advance, right? Um everybody from in every corner of the of the book publishing industry uh who cares about long-term success knows that you need to publish multiple books in order to realize a profit, or you need to find a way to monetize a book sale beyond the royalty you’ll generate from that single book. No one, no one thinks you can make money off of one book.

Sayde 15:57

Right. And I think that this piece of the conversation is starting to get explored more and it’s a little more easily accessible for folks that like royalties alone are not, are not gonna, you’re not gonna break even on that, especially when you are a self-published author, an independently published author, and you’re paying experts to develop your book for you. All of that money is up front. You are spending that as the author to have your book copy edited, to have a cover designed, you know, potentially paying someone to help you with setting up your distribution channels. And so to think that you could make that money back on just royalties alone is is uh pretty pie in the sky.

Joel 16:35

Yeah, or royalties of just one book. Right. Because there are people who, you know, they’ll publish a seven book series. You know, we have a great interview with an author named Heather Justice, who um has made a profit as a writer. And she does it because she writes these four, five, six, sometimes seven book series, um, loses money on the first book, second book, but by the time someone gets all the way through her series, they paid for the money that she lost in those first books. But it took her a long time to build those budgets. So the reason we have this as a budgeting principle is budgets are all about balancing your budgets, right? You want to be in the black, not in the red, right? So if you’re building your book launch budget, hoping that the sales for one book and the royalties from those sales will offset all the costs, otherwise it’s a failed budget, then uh it’s a fool’s errand. It’s just not gonna happen. So you need to adjust your expectations.

Sayde 17:27

Yeah, that’s a great way to put it. Adjust your expectations.

Joel 17:31

Awesome. So um, speaking of expectations, we’re gonna do our final principle here. Um, but before we do that, I want to remind everybody again if you’re enjoying this episode, please follow us. Like and subscribe on any platform you’re on. Um, share it with your friends. We like to help people figure all this stuff out using all the information that we figured

Principle Five Save 33% Marketing

Joel 17:50

out over the years. So, all right, so the fifth principle, our ultimate final principle of book launch budgeting, is save at least 33% of your budget for marketing. And I have kind of a funny story about this one because um 33 sounds very specific. It sounds like uh Sayde and I have spent years rigorously testing different budget allocations for marketing and talking to industry experts and figured out the golden number of 323%. No, that is not what this number is. I actually was doing a morning meditation before I was going to be giving a talk on this topic. And I had this idea that I would say 33% would be good for marketing based on nothing except for the fact that that number feels uncomfortable. That’s why I thought it was a good number, right? When someone looks at all the things they could spend money on, you know, with at the starting at the very beginning with writing, publishing, all that kind of stuff, to take a third and set it aside for marketing, that seems crazy, right? It seems like a lot. And it’s so I felt like having a number this big would get across the point that people shouldn’t just budget to get that book published and then hope that it takes off. There needs to be money and then time and energy and strategy set aside, you know, at least a third for the marketing promotion, platform building, audience building phase of this work.

Sayde 19:15

Yeah. And I would say, Joel, that the authors that we have worked with who, whether or not they’ve, you know, we’ve given them this spiel or they’ve read the article or they’ve sat in on one of your workshops, you know, we we’re talking with people up front about this before they start their publishing journey, kind of like, here’s here’s how to budget. Um, and when you have that, someone has imparted that knowledge to you right up front, right away. Oh, I need to be thinking about marketing and I need to be setting aside money for marketing before you’ve even started publishing, maybe even before you, you know, you’ve written your book, but maybe you haven’t even started copy editing. Those authors that that move into the publishing journey, knowing that marketing is their responsibility financially and the and strategizing and uh leveraging and execution of that, they are, I don’t want to say they’re more successful, but they’re more set up for success. And at launch time, they are their expectations are are sober and and crystal clear. Um, they’re not thinking, oh, I’m gonna put this book up on Amazon and the algorithm is just gonna show it to people and discover it and it’s gonna take off. They know that this is a marathon, not a sprint. They know that they have to be invested in, you know, both time and energy and capacity. And and so they are more successful in selling books over the long run because they’re thinking about this from the get-go.

Joel 20:50

Absolutely. That’s right. So um, so yeah, make sure you set aside that some of that money for marketing. And by the way, don’t uh I don’t mean to set it aside and save it for the end. Your marketing needs to start right away. We’ve we have a lot of stuff on our website, and we’ve done uh other podcast episodes about this. You need to be building your author platform today, while you’re writing the book, while you’re publishing the book, doing all that. So that that time, energy, budget investment, that all that’s that’s something that should be happening as you go, not just saved for the end. It’ll be far more effective that way. So

Wrap Up Download And Email Us

Joel 21:26

awesome. So those are our five principles. And again, if you’re a person who’s like, yeah, printable shrimpable, get me to the practical stuff, tell me exactly what I need to do, then download our ebook. Um uh, but again, don’t overlook the principles because you’re gonna need to understand how each one applies to you in your unique situation. Um, if you have any questions about any of this or you feel like there’s anything that we missed on this podcast or in the ebook, uh please email us. You can email me at Joel at launch my book uh or Sayde at Sayde at launch my book. Um, and we hope to hear from you.