What Does It Really Cost to Self-Publish a Quality Book?

In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I’m joined by Michele DeFilippo, founder of 1106 Design and a publishing industry veteran with more than 50 years of experience. We dive into the realities of book publishing—what most people get wrong, what actually matters, and how a well-done book can completely transform your business.

From traditional publishing to self-publishing and hybrid models, Michele breaks down the landscape with clarity and candor, helping authors avoid costly mistakes and disappointing outcomes

Why Most Self-Published Books Miss the Mark

• Why skipping market research is one of the biggest (and most expensive) mistakes authors make
• How treating a book like a passion project instead of a business asset leads to poor results
• The danger of cutting corners on editing, design, and production quality 

Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing vs. Hybrid Models

• Why landing a traditional publishing deal is harder than ever (and what publishers really want now)
• How Amazon changed publishing forever—and where things went sideways
• The hidden downside of hybrid publishers that charge upfront and take royalties
• What “true” self-publishing was originally meant to be 

What It Actually Costs to Publish a Professional Book

• The difference between real editing and running a manuscript through Grammarly
• Why nonfiction books cost more to produce than fiction
• What goes into professional cover design (and why it’s never a “5-minute job”)
• Realistic investment ranges for publishing to traditional industry standards 

One-Stop Shop vs. Piecing It Together Yourself

• Why project management matters just as much as creative talent
• The risks of hiring freelancers without knowing what to look for
• Common problems authors face after using bargain services or template-based designs
• How working with an experienced team protects both your book and your sanity 

How a Small Book Can Create Big Business Results

• How Michele’s 88-page guide became a powerful lead generator—unexpectedly
• Why books make exceptional lead magnets in an overwhelmed digital world
• How publishing can lead to speaking opportunities, authority positioning, and new revenue streams
• Why a book doesn’t need to be long to be impactful 

A Marketing Lesson That Still Holds True

Michele closes the episode with a timeless reminder that applies to publishing, marketing, and business as a whole:

Listen to your customers.
Even when the feedback is uncomfortable—especially then.

It’s a lesson that has guided her work for decades and continues to pay dividends today 

If you’ve been sitting on a book idea, a half-finished manuscript, or the sense that a book could open doors for you—this episode will help you think about publishing strategically, not emotionally.

🎧 Tune in to learn how a well-crafted book can become one of the most powerful marketing assets in your business.

Connect with Michele Defilippo:
Website:

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Transcript

Welcome And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Hi, I'm Kendrick Corman. If you're a coach, consultant, or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science. And that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I'm your host, Kendra Corman, and I am excited today to be joined by Michelle of 1106 Designs. We're going to be talking about something that I think is hugely important, and that is a book publishing. As many of you know, I wrote a small helpful book after having another guest on my show a couple of years ago talking about what he had copyrighted as Shooks, short helpful books. And it changed my business. It revolutionized and opened up new streams of business and gave me instant credibility that hasn't been matched elsewhere. So I am so excited to be talking about this with you, Michelle, today. Thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Well, thank you for having me, Kendra. I I appreciate being here, and my experience has been pretty much the same as what you just described.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

That's awesome. All right. So it's always good when when we recommend the same things. Um, it's always good when we don't disagree too. So I'm all good with that also. Um, but um, how did you get into this? How did you get into book publishing?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Oh gosh, I'm gonna date myself here, but I've been in the publishing industry since 1972. It was the first Crown Publishers in New York was the first company that offered me a job when I got out of school. And so I accepted without having any idea whatsoever what I was getting into. But I loved it. And it's been, uh, it was then and still is really um so interesting because every project is different. There's no boredom, every author is different, every book is different. And so it's it's been a wonderful journey in that respect as far as keeping interested in in your work.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

That's so fun. You know it's a passion when you've been doing it for so long, right? I mean, and that you still wake up and want to do it some more, which is always, which is always good. The book process is scary and intimidating for a lot of people, right? So they usually they start with an idea. They don't know if anybody's interested in it. They skip editing, I find.

unknown 2:56

Yes.

Michelle’s Path Into Publishing

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Right. And they skip hiring experts for layout and just sort of go and publish. I don't know. It's a hot mess. So let's talk about like what are some of these steps that people need to follow, or what's the first thing that they should be doing when they decide that they want to publish a book?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Well, the first thing they should be doing is actually thinking a little bit more about whether or not anyone else would be interested in their manuscript before they get too far along. Because in in the real traditional publishing world, publishers will do a lot of research before they publish a book. They'll determine is there a market for this book? Um, how many people might be interested in it? What's the competition? How many other titles are similar to the to the one that this author just submitted to us? So I hate to say all, but generally speaking, self-publishers don't do enough of that. They might become very passionate about the book they've written or want to write, and that that's great. Passion moves us forward in many areas in life, but but you're entering a business. So it's important to keep that in mind that this is a business. It's if you do it correctly, it's gonna cost you some money to get your book published, unless, unless you uh get a deal from a traditional publisher. And we could talk more about that. But for the most part, it's the expense is gonna be on you. And so you should really think long and hard about whether you want to incur that expense and what your chances are of making that money back.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

So let's talk a little bit about going the traditional publisher route versus self-publishing. I think a lot of people have been self-publishing, at least in my circles. What are your thoughts on that?

Validating Ideas Like A Publisher

Traditional vs Self vs Hybrid

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Well, there's three models of publishing now. When I first entered the business, there was only traditional publishing. It was the only option. You had to submit your manuscript to a traditional publisher because they were the only ones who had distribution. You couldn't get your book out to the general public unless you used a publisher. So that was the only game in town. And it still exists and it still has a lot of benefits if you can get that sort of deal. But traditional publishing is very difficult to uh to get a deal from a traditional publisher, not only because of the research that they do, but because they are looking for authors. An agent told me not too long ago that they are looking for authors who have a platform of around 100,000 social media followers. They're looking for authors that can actually help them market the book once the publisher decides to release it. So that that's a tough hill for any independent author to climb. It's for any person to climb. It pretty much limits the uh publishers who will be uh who will accept you to, you know, movie stars and politicians and someone else who just has uh uh established that level of a platform and most people have not. But that doesn't mean you can't succeed in publishing. It there are just some things you need to do to achieve that. Now, when self-publishing first came out around 1995 or so, Amazon was responsible for that. And for the first time ever, it would be possible for anyone to get distribution by uploading their book to Amazon. Their self-publishing arm at that time was called Book Surge, then it became Create Space, and now it's KDP.com. And so anyone can get distribution to the public. And that was an earthquake in the publishing industry. It has opened up enormous possibilities to for people to get their word out about whatever it is they want to say. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, it also went very wrong. It is a hot mess now, to use your words, because a lot of players have entered the industry that are taking the the worst part of self-put. There's been a lot of people who said you should do the book yourself. You should design your own cover, you should format your own manuscript, your own pages. And that has led to an avalanche of terrible books on the market. So, and then now we have publishers are back again, but they call themselves hybrid publishers. Now, traditional publishers don't charge the author anything. All the author has to do is submit a manuscript. Okay. And then the publisher takes on all the responsibility of hiring the experts to produce the book, distributing the book, all the expenses. And then in return to recoup that investment, the publisher will take most of the of the revenue from sales. And that's fair. They've made the investment, they took the risk, they should get a reward for that. Self-publishing, when it originally came out, meant that the author was going to make all of the investment in the to produce the book, hire the experts, and then get all of the revenue from sales when the book was sold. And that was good for about 10 years, 15 years. Then we started to see middle ground publishers, like hybrid publishers. And what they do, and self-publishing companies, what they do is they charge the author to produce the book, and they also take money out of the author's pocket when a book is sold. So that doesn't work out too well for the author. They're getting charged on both ends of the spectrum. And um I've I've seen some pretty terrible um numbers, like nine being paid 90 cents a book or something, something in that neighborhood after the self-publishing company takes their cut. Now, the question is if you have no investment in my book, why are you taking any of my revenue from sales? That's the question that authors should should genuinely ask themselves. But a lot of people don't. They just assume that, oh, well, here's my publisher. He's going to charge me to produce my book and he's going to share the revenue, and that just must be the way it is. But there's an alternative, and it goes back to original self-publishing. And there are companies like mine called that you could categorize as author services companies. We help you with all the professional services that you need to publish a quality book, and we don't take a penny of your revenue when that book is sold. So that is actually original, legitimate self-publishing as it was originally intended.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

I have a friend who's working on a book right now, and she's like, and I was talking to this person, and they'll do this, this, this, and this, and charge me this, and they won't take any of the revenue from the book sales. And I was like, no kidding, they shouldn't. You're paying them for the services that they're delivering.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

You'd be surprised how many people don't know that though.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

And she's like, Well, but there were so many other people I was I'm like, oh my goodness, no. Like, no. And in the marketing agency world, I'm always blown away when I hear about agencies that are like, oh yeah, no, you paid us for the work, but we own all the files. And you're like, Why do you own all the files? Um, which is, you know, very common in the big agency world or the middle market agency world that's dealing with larger people. Cause I still remember I was brought in to quote and they're like, okay, do you own the files? And then if we need an edit, how much does that cost? And I'm like, it costs the amount of time that we need to do the edit. And they're like, oh, well, this company was$150 minimum per edit. And it was like, and they still own the files. And I'm like, no, if you want the files, I'll send them to you. You own them. You paid for me to do them. So um, the end, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

I feel the same way about it. I mean, there are many public many of these hybrid publishers and and legitimate publishers who believe the files belong to them. Maybe they do legally. I'm not a lawyer, but I I think it's a stupid thing to have an argument over, especially if you've paid that company to produce your files. We know we never do that to people. If you want the files, go ahead. We hope you'll come back to us for revisions because we know that you're probably gonna mess things up if you try to do revisions yourself. But, you know, we're not gonna make an argument about it.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yeah, no, and I think that that's important. So you talked about cost. So, what kind of cost to produce a traditional book to publisher standards? Like, how much is that gonna run somebody? Because you've got to do what? Cover design, um, layout, editing. There's I mean, there's more to it than just copying and pasting it into a document.

The Revenue Trap Of Hybrids

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah, that's another area of great misunderstanding in the in the business right now, because there's a lot of companies that will quote a cheap price to authors. And many authors shop like consumers, they don't shop like business people. So they go with the lowest price, not understanding that the person offering that low price is cutting corners somewhere. There you will always get exactly what you pay for, no matter what you buy or who you buy it from. That's the that's just a basic law of business that never will change. So if you want a book that's produced to traditional publishing standards, and that's what we do, a tremendous amount of work goes into it. You will be amazed at what a good editor does with your text. Now, there's a lot of people out there that are saying they're edit your manuscript, but they're really running it through grammarly or something similar, and you're not really getting true high-level editing.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

So tell me what that is.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

A good editor is a stand-in for your reader. They're not only experts in language, but they are thinking along the lines of, gee, you know, what you just explained here isn't maybe exactly as clear as it should be. I think you should elaborate, or I think you you're you're saying the same thing over and over again. You should really cut back on that. And those are things we don't see in our own writing. So it's absolutely essential to work with a qualified editor who can be that objective eye on your manuscript. Now, sometimes that scares authors. I that they'll say, I don't want anybody to change my words, but a good editor will also show you everything they recommend. They're not going to change anything, they will suggest. And it's always up to the author to accept or reject those changes.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Okay, awesome. So getting back to price. So we've got that. We've got a good editor, we've got cover art.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, covers are misunderstood as well. I had a woman on the phone one time say to me, I know you spend only 15 minutes on a cover. All you do is put a picture and put a title on top of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Oh my god, I love it when people say that. They're like, this should take you five minutes. And I'm like, great, do it yourself.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

And I and I was thinking to myself, I wish, because if that was the case, I'd be sipping pina coladas in Tahiti right now. I wouldn't be working. Um, so there's a lot of misunderstanding about that. But there are also a lot of uh uh vendors who actually work at that level and they're actually giving the same cover over and over again to hundreds or thousands of authors. They call it pre-made covers. Well, you know, that's not how a real cover designer works. A real cover designer learns about your book, tries to figure out what you need to communicate in order to attract your target audience. We do some research on on what the audience is looking for. And there's a whole process involved in cover design as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

All right. So getting down to brass tacks, right? What's the number or what's the range that people are looking at when it comes to publishing investment?

SPEAKER_00 14:17

In my company, for a fiction book, uh 200 pages, 50,000 words or so, a fiction book, full service editing, cover design, interior design, and typesetting, proofreading, and ebook formatting would be in the$8,000 range. Nonfiction book about$1,000 more, so$9,000. So why is nonfiction more? Because nonfiction is more complicated to format. There's usually headings, subheadings, tables, charts, graphs, you know, all sorts of complications that fiction doesn't have. A fiction book, as you know, is just straight text. So it can be done faster by the typeser.

What Professional Editing Really Does

SPEAKER_02 14:53

If people are looking to self-publish, right, there's a lot of different places that they can go. They could go to somebody like 1106 design and get soup to nuts, right? Or they can go out and start piecemealing, right? They could get maybe someone who's gonna lay it out, maybe someone who's gonna do cover art, things like that, right? What's the benefit of doing one-stop shop?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

One stop shop, I think that is really our strongest point because we we give you project management and our expertise along the way. We're not just giving you tasks. So if you come to a one-stop shop like us, we we know what to look for in terms of qualifications for editors and designers and proofreaders and ebook formatters. So you're guaranteed to have an assembled team that knows what they're doing. If you piecemeal it out on your own, I mean, if if in your job, let's say you have always worked in the publication area and you know about these qualifications, that's great. Go ahead and piecemeal it out on your own. But it's still a lot of work to deal with five or six or seven people. And if you don't have expertise in that area, you could really make some bad choices and wind up with a poor product. We get the calls every week from someone who followed the online advice to to hire a covered designer on Fiverr or 99 designs or something like that. And they find out that the files won't upload after they've been through this whole process and spent countless hours. They find that the uh, you know, they'll go back to the designer and say, I need you to make a full cover with a barcode. That's what the printer needs. And the design, the so-called designer will say, Oh, we don't do that. You know, so you again gets back to you got what you pay for.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Okay. And then for people that are interested in learning more, you have a guide, right, on your website that we'll have a link to you in the show notes. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

The Real Work Behind Cover Design

SPEAKER_00 16:49

I do. It's called Publish Like the Pros, and it's just a quick read, 88 pages, give takes you through all the steps that you need to know about to self-publish a book. And I give it away for free on my website because I want people to understand what they're getting into and be able to do it well, whether they hire us or not. Because I, you know, the authors who call me are suffering terribly. So go to my website, 1106design.com. You can download it for free, and hopefully we can have a conversation. But, you know, my intent is to make sure you don't get hooked into one of these bad companies or don't go out and inadvertently create a terrible book on your own.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

So one of the things that we were talking about before we started recording was that this has been successful for you in growing your email list and growing your business. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Because I love, and for me, from a marketing strategy position, you know, I think a book is huge for people to do. It gives instant credibility, it gives just so much more than I ever expected. Um, having written my book on AI prompting, um, and I did do the project management through upwork and stuff like that. So um, it's a lot of work. Um, but I had I had a guide to follow for for within reason, but it is a lot of work. And I did not have an editor or anything like that, right? And it still cost me quite a bit. So talk to me a little bit about that angle, right? So you've got this guide. It's also a book as you can, as you, as you held up, which is awesome. What has that done for you for you and your business? And why it, why should someone spend that kind of time creating their own book?

True Costs To Publish Well

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Well, there's a story behind that. Um, nobody was more surprised than me to find out that this little 88-page guide could bring in customers. I I did it on a lark. I I had um done about 60 blog posts at the time. This I published it first in 2012, and my editor said, why don't we turn this into a book? You've got 60 blog posts, you know, why don't we just gather it all together and make it a book? And I said, Okay, I didn't expect any results whatsoever. But people started calling and saying, I read your book. How do I sign up? It was fabulous. I think every every business should do this. I don't care what you're selling. You should put a little publication on your website uh as a lead magnet. And because especially now in 2012 it wasn't so bad, but especially now, people are just overwhelmed with pitches coming in from email and from the web. And, you know, so uh the ability to download a PDF and and just read it at your leisure, your message is going to get through a lot better than any other method, I think. It has for me anyway.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Well, and I mean for me too. I mean, I really wasn't doing much speaking other than like with my local chamber thing, you know, just small little things that I had been doing from a speaking perspective. And then, you know, I published my book and all of a sudden a paid speaker, you know, people are are paying for travel costs to get me to their conference. Things that I never ever imagined possible. It just gave me that instant credibility that you just wouldn't expect.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah, and it doesn't have to be a long book. My little short book works. I mean, if you want to do a full-length book, that's great. I mean, it might help you get more uh keynote addresses if someone says, Oh, yeah, this person really is an expert in their field. And you send the book out, it might cost you$4,$5 to print. That's the cheapest marketing you can do.

One-Stop Shop vs Piecemeal

SPEAKER_02 20:27

I know. That's why I did it. I'm like, I could just do this as part of my speaking fee and give people copies, which is what I do. Um, it's just it's crazy. I'm actually at the time of this recording, I'm actually working on another little book. And um, unlike your recommendations, I actually am not doing any research on whether anybody wants it, but I'm actually doing it just literally for marketing to hand it out um based upon things that people have asked me for. And so I'm like, I'm gonna put this in a book, which is cool. So I'm not really expecting it to sell, but um, I am expecting it to be a point of conversation. And I think that that's also um has its own value. So if you're thinking about having a book or are considering, or you have that book idea, or you have that manuscript mostly done, be sure to check the show notes for contact information for Michelle and her company 1106 design. Before I let you go though, I do need to ask you the question that I ask all of my guests because this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Marketing is anything but a perfect science. What's been your biggest marketing lesson learned?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

The biggest marketing lesson learned actually was given given to me when I first opened my doors in my first business in 1980. A uh owner of a roofing company came in and he, I guess I looked like I needed advice, was 28 years old at the time. And he said, Listen to your customers, they will tell you everything you need to know. And he was right, and I've done that all these years, and and that was absolutely true. Don't think you know everything. If a customer tells you something, even if it's something you're not really thrilled to hear, listen to it, think about it, make it happen in your business, and and it will pay for itself many times over.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

So important and so so insightful. I mean, I'm teaching a marketing research class right now, and I told or market research class, I should say, and I told my students, I said, this is probably one of the key fundamentals that most people skip in everything that they do. Because they think they know and they don't listen to what they're being told. And um, just so many of the podcast recordings that I'm doing on my recording day here have backed that up and re-emphasized the fact of how important it is. And especially when you're working either for your business or publishing a book, whatever it happens to be. Again, it's something just so huge and just such a differentiator, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

If you listen, just listen and give people what they want. And don't pre-judge. I mean, especially and especially if it's something you don't really want to hear, just think about it. Say, maybe do they have a point? Just consider it a little bit. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

And there's just so much value in that. So thank you again, Michelle, for joining me. I really appreciate it. For those of you of you listening or watching, wherever you're listening or watching, if you learned something today, and I hope that you did, it would be awesome if you would rate and subscribe. It really helps me out with the continuation of this podcast. Thank you all again for tuning in. Have a great rest of your day.