Investing In Getting Your Book Published 

    I'm nearing the finish line of completing my book with 215 of 250 pages edited and have looked into publishing. There's a lot of things that need to be done and investments to be made.

    First off, you need to hire an editor. A manuscript with grammatical and spelling errors is dead on arrival. It's important to get outside help; we each have biases pertaining to our own work that can blind us.

    You need someone to design cover art for the book. As an artist I'm tempted to do this myself but cover artists know what sells. There are specific things that attract people to reading a book. People can and do judge a book by its cover. 

    Finally you need an agent to have a chance to sign on with a major publishing company. All these things take money and it's unlikely a first book will sell very well until the author is established. Most authors don't see returns until their fourth book. If you want a sustainable income as an author you have to play the long game.