Assumed Business Name

It was expensive today as far as how much money I have spent in creating my first book.  I paid $250 for a block of 10 ISBN numbers.  Seeing how you need one for every format there was no other choice.  I don't have $1000 to spend on 1000 numbers.  At least not yet.  It is aggravating that I am going to need 3 numbers for one book.  One for Paperback, one for the Kindle format and one for the Nook format.

However the sad thing is that the ISBN website itself preys upon people by charging $25 to generate a barcode.  I took a class this last weekend about writing, publishing, and marketing a book.  The instructor in that class also said that you should be paying $20-$50 for a barcode from your graphics designer.  Generally the same person who is doing your interior design or book cover.  The best part was when the instructor said that the barcode is special because it has "film" in it.  Wow, just wow.  Because you know, that special film is important and its not like you cant get MS Word to create one for you, or that there are not 100's of web sites that will generate them for you as well...

I also spent $25 today to register SBJones Publishing with the state of Idaho.  As a sole proprietor I would not have had to do this if my name was in the title.  But I need a tax exempt number so I can have my books made and then sell them to people w/o having to pay the tax myself.  To get that number, the business name needs to be registered.  I should be receiving that documentation by the end of this week or the start of next week.

So $275 today.  Other than a few reams of paper, printer ink and about $30 in office supplies I had yet to spend  what I consider to be any real money.  With additional costs coming up and trying to pay myself at least minimum wage for my time.  I need to sell about 3000 downloads from Amazon or BN.com at $2.99 with the 70% commission.  Thats roughly $2.09 per sell.

With this being my first book, I think that goal is going to be a challenge but doable.  I don't think book one will be able to do it on its own unless I get lucky, or I spend a thousand hours selling it.  Once books two and three are available, I think getting 3000 sales will be achievable.  Sure I will need to sell more total books, but the next two will not have these upfront costs associated with them.

One of my current goals is to keep the out of pocket costs of this book to under $1000.  So far it still seems doable.