exact numbers, but to understand the value of your time, and to understand that you should, as a rule, spend your time where you create the most value for yourself. THE QUALITY: PEOPLE JUDGE YOU BASED ON YOUR BOOK Like I said earlier, most information pieces on the cost of publishing give you the cheapest way to do it. That’s not a plausible path for our clients. If you have a professional reputation to uphold, then using cheap services to publish your book will actually hurt you. The fact is, readers will judge your book. And not just the book; they will judge you as a person based on the quality of your book. This is one of those unpleasant but true facts of life. We all say “you shouldn’t judge a book based on the cover,” but we all do. The more you accept this fact and then adapt to it, the better your book—and thus your career—will be. When evaluating cost, the metric a professional should be using is quality. How can you get high quality at a low cost, NOT how can you get the lowest cost. To help you see this, as I explain each publishing stage and the cost, I’ll rank the price ranges for each tier: Low quality, Acceptable, High Quality, Best Possible. It’s not necessary to pay for Best Possible every time, or even for High Quality. Sometimes acceptable is good enough. The key is knowing where and when to save money, and where to spend it, to make sure you get the highest leverage for your money. A WORD ON WRITING COST This is not technically part of the publishing process, but it’s one of those areas that can range anywhere from free (not counting opportunity cost, of course), to well into the six figures. hOW MUCh DOES iT COST TO SElf-PUBliSh A BOOk? · 333