Five posts to publication, five dreams – here’s the first, which came at the very start of the process, when I’d done some research but was still feeling anxious about committing .

Weds 5th Feb, 2014

I’m lying on the floor in front of the fire, going through my self-publishing lists for Writing in the House of Dreams. I’m going to make some decisions now… None of it feels overwhelming any more…. None of it feels risky. The actual amounts I’ll have to spend are not that big…

This is one of those dreams that highlights what matters when you’re floundering in a sea of new information. The bottom line, when it came to worrying about self-publishing, was the actual costs, and my research had shown me that I could choose how much I wanted to spend, starting at zero if I did it all myself. It didn’t have to feel risky!

I’d looked into buying an inclusive package, but none of them seemed to me to offer good value, and I was leaning towards the idea of finding a professional editor and designer myself, and paying one-off fees rather than upfront costs plus a percentage on sales.

I’d discovered that a full edit for 300 pages would cost about £800 but I could get a line edit for around £500 and I felt that would be sufficient as in all my years as a published author I’d never needed more.

I knew I needed a designer for the layouts, because Writing in the House of Dreams is a complicated text with non-fiction features such as bullets and boxes, and I’d found designers who could produce the layouts for both the ebook and the paperback for about £200-300.

Finally, I wanted a professional cover, and that would cost around £150 plus the cost of any images I might use.

That meant the cost of producing my book to the standard I wanted would come in around £1000, tax deductible. I might not earn it back, but I would certainly earn something, so my maximum potential losses would be much smaller.

Experienced self-publisher Diana Kimpton’s advice on finance is ‘Don’t spend more than you could afford to lose’ and that seems sound to me.

My dream told me I wasn’t worried about that level of maximum loss, when weighed against the possibility of going into profit and selling on the longer term.

It told me, ‘I’m going to make some decisions now.’ And I did.

I chose an editor I knew personally and she did an amazing job for me, especially in giving instructions for the designer about such things as heading size, italics and indentations, which I’d got into quite a muddle over.

I chose a designer who was recommended to me by a friend, and she was very patient with me, which I needed, being so inexperienced.

I found an artist whose work I really liked, went on her website and discovered she had several linocuts that would be perfect for Writing in the House of Dreams and my follow-up book, When a Writer Isn’t Writing. She gave me permission to use them for a small fee.

By the time I’d done all the research I needed to do, I hadn’t been able to see the wood for the trees. I’d felt overwhelmed, but my dream got straight to the nitty gritty for me. The bottom line is, how much will it actually cost? Now, does that still feel too risky?

Have you ever had a dream which clarified the issue when you were suffering from information-overload?

Next week I’ll tell you about the funny dream that saved me from a confidence dip once the process was underway.