World's Best Infographics

With the growing popularity of self-publishing, there is one recurring question I get from almost every aspiring author: “How much should I budget?” This is a really hard question to answer because the term “self-publishing” encompasses a wide range of very different possibilities.

For example, let’s say you’ve written a first draft of your novel and just uploaded it to Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. Technically, you’re “self-publishing.” And your only monetary cost is the formatting to get the required .mobi file, which can be done for free via several online tools.

Now, if you want to have a chance of selling that book, you need to replicate at least some of the steps of traditional publishing and ensure a certain level of quality and professionalism. This means having your book properly edited, typeset and proofread, and hiring a designer to create an eye-catching cover. Depending on your genre and your writing ability, these can cost more or less.

It’s impossible to say, “Self-publishing your book with cost you $X.” However, it is possible to find average costs for the different steps that go into producing a book: editing, design and typesetting. And this is what the data and infographic below focus on....

We can’t all be J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer, but if you’re working on a book, it’s nice to know what helps with success.

First, don’t get too long-winded: Surprisingly, the average length of a best-selling book is 375 pages. (Lord of the Rings is definitely an outlier here.)

As far as setting goes, most bestselling books are set in the U.S., with lawyers or detectives as main characters. Romance is, by far, the most lucrative genre. Romance books bring in $1.4 billion a year, with crime books in second place. Interestingly enough, people finish romance novels but often ditch religious books.

While the U.S. leads for its publishing industry, Germany, France, China, Japan and the UK also have large markets for authors. If you’re publishing an e-book, Amazon might be the best bet –– the company controls more than half of the e-book market. Authors also get to keep 70 percent of what they make on Amazon....