How Much Does It Cost To Become An Author? (In 2025)

"It costs a couple of hundred dollars to set up an LLC online, and a few hundred more for the advice and guidance of professionals like accountants. Essentially, for what I’m doing, there’s not a lot of capital upfront."

Nick Thacker is the founder of Turtleshell Press, LLC, a book production firm that supports his career as an indie author.

"When I first started self-publishing, our start-up costs were relatively low. I found a book cover artist on Fiverr to produce a cover for under $100, and we were off to the races."

James Rosone is the founder of Front Line Publishing Inc, a self-publishing business that specializes in military, political, and espionage thrillers.

"The total cost of operating Merrative comes around USD 1,000/- per year + variable costs of hiring freelancers or interns."

Harshala Chavan is the founder of Merrative, a community-led marketplace for the publishing industry that connects brands, creators, and publishers with top publishing talent.

"The funny part was that, like most startups that are bootstrapped, I started for probably just a few hundred bucks. However, I may have started with nothing but I probably lost hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years on bad marketing, inexperienced advertising, etc, etc. That’s the true cost of experience -vs- start-up expenses."

Keith Lynch is the founder of Qwantify, a digital development and marketing agency that develops, markets, and monetizes profitable e-commerce websites for aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners worldwide.

"As you can imagine, the startup costs were very small. Other than our time, the only investment we made monetarily was sending each new member a coffee mug and t-shirt with the mastermind logo on it."

John Lee Dumas is the founder of Entrepreneurs On Fire, a daily podcast interviewing successful entrepreneurs, launched in 2012.

"It took a lot of trial and error, but we eventually came up with a step-by-step process that worked." [No direct quotes related to startup costs found in provided article.]

Tucker Max is the co-founder of Scribe Media, a book writing, publishing, and marketing service company.

"I built my online course on Teachable, because it’s the lowest-friction creation experience, without sacrificing quality. That’s my ethos: Minimize friction to create, maximize the quality of the content (while still looking “professional,” which is especially important when self-publishing). I’ve made one huge mistake over the past five years: Thinking that business is a competition, not a collaboration. I always looked at fellow entrepreneurs and thought we couldn’t help each other."

Matt Rudnitsky is the founder of Platypus Publishing, a book publishing business that also offers ghostwriting and online courses for aspiring authors.

"I started Advantage on July 19, 2005. I was 23 years old. In the first year, we did about $250K in sales. I paid myself a salary of $40K. I lived very frugally."

Adam Witty is the founder of Advantage|ForbesBooks, a publishing and marketing company that started in 2005 and has become one of the largest business book publishers in America.

"Financially, we had it pretty easy. Each of the co-founders put in a minor amount of money to cover incidental expenses of the crowdfunding campaign."

David Dewane is the founder of Mouse Book Club, a book subscription service that has mailed over 40,000 books to 60+ countries and all 50 states, generating impressive sales of about $170,000 in the first two years.

"The startup costs were minimal as far as ordering cards online. Every holiday season, I normally order $200 worth of cards to send to family and friends. Now, I design and order my own. The initial printing runs, equipment costs (printer and paper, etc.), website subscription, domain purchase, and business liability insurance were about $1,200."

Jane is the founder of Finn + Remy Present, a children's book and art business that she started alongside her second son.