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Sunk cost of breaking in

Russell Nohelty's avatar
Russell Nohelty
Jan 08, 2024
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How much are you willing to pay to break in?

That is a very important question because there is always a cost to break into a new market.

I was willing to blow every dollar I spent on Ichabod Jones: Monster Hunter in order to break into comics. Was that a good idea? It turned out alright, but in the moment it felt huge. It was huge. Ichabod costs me $8500 to create without any printing or marketing. At the time I was making $20,000 a year without a stable job.

When I started doing book marketing, I blew through $4,000 learning what ended up being a $40,000+ business last year. I didn't even know I wanted to do that business, but I knew that I wanted to be a successful author, and was willing to spend money to do it.

I made that money back ten fold, but I still had to spend it with no guarantee of success. On top of learning book marketing, I built up 21 books and spent almost $8,000 before I started launching books, willing to blow that money in order to break in as a novelist.

I did it be…

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