How much does self-publishing cost?

I can't speak for everyone who self-publishes, but here's what it has cost me so far to get Just Like Magic available for purchase:

$29.49   iStock photo credits, for my cover photo. I still have a few credits left, too.
$  7.08   First proof copy from CreateSpace, including shipping.
$25.00   Extended distribution from CreateSpace (optional).
$  7.11   Second proof copy from CreateSpace, including shipping.
$23.40   Five copies of final version for me, at author's discount, including shipping & tax.

Total: $92.08.

Note: Just Like Magic is 198 pages long. Price for proofs and author's copies is based on the book length; my copies are $3.22 each plus shipping and tax. (The second proof copy had two more pages, hence the higher price.) For fatter books, you need fatter wallets.

Buying an ISBN would have cost me from $10 to $250. But I didn't; I used the free CreateSpace ISBN. If I had paid someone to edit the interior or design the cover, that would have cost me hundreds more. But I didn't; I did it myself, with help from friends and family.

Further expenses? Well, marketing. I really haven't done anything about marketing besides this blog and posting about it on my Facebook page. Sending out review copies will obviously cost me for books and postage.

Considering that I don't expect to make a mint from this, I think the cost is reasonable.

But those are just the monetary expenses. There are also time costs: 6 months of my spare time to get it published, and that's considering that I had the whole book written when I started. That 6 months included formatting, designing, rewriting, waiting for proofs, proofing, waiting for other people to proof, and more proofing. Having more experience now, I don't think another book would take me six months.

And there are emotional costs, too, to putting your baby out in front of the public. Cheers, jeers, and silence all take their tolls.

Meanwhile--I have signed up for a (free! through my library) online course entitled "Publish and Sell Your E-Books" which starts in about ten days. I think I'll let what I learn in that course guide me in my attempts to get the e-version out. What research I did this week into publishing for the Kindle led me to believe that 1) it's so simple a child could do it, but 2) you have to be a child with a PhD in HTML. So I think I'll see what I learn in the class before going further with that.

This week--more break time for me! Have a good week, everyone.