I would say that spending a little money on a cover isn’t a waste, but then again, people here are mostly judging on the content of your sample chapters and the strength of your pitch/synopsis. Friends and family are supporting YOU not necessarily this specific book. After you are funded you will need to buy your own cover for Quill, but full Inkshares means they are going to get one for you, so don’t splash out on a $1000 cover artist during the campaign.

You won’t make any money at all until it actually comes out: all the funds raised during your pre-order campaign go directly into production expenses. You’ll earn royalties once you hit that goal, if I’m not mistaken, but they won’t be sent to you until the publication date comes, which can be as much as a year or more after you send in your manuscript. So whatever expenses you intend to recoup from your campaign, be prepared for a very long wait on them.
Honestly, though, this isn’t entirely the kind of situation where "you have to spend money to make money" thing comes into play. I experimented a few times with paying to run ads on google and facebook and the like, and I was met with absolutely zero success. I got a fair number of clicks, but no new purchases. I’d entirely advise against that route, unless you really know what you’re doing.
Paying for a good book trailer or a professionally designed book cover are good for your branding, and make your book a much easier sell, but ultimately won’t do anything to draw people in on their own.
Put money into this if you’re able and have a plan, but the resource you’re really going to need is time. You have to go out and personally find every single reader on your own, and money won’t directly help with that. If anything, I’d say taking a week off of work is about ten times more valuable for your campaign than a thousand dollars. If you’ve got $20 to blow, instead of paying for a couple days of facebook ad boosting, give it to the neighbor’s kid for him to mow your lawn so you can scrape together an extra hour or two of campaigning.

Every time someone likes Evan’s party parrot post the giant party parrot goes on the newsfeed. Which is justification enough to do it. ;)

I gotcha covered.

Welcome to Inkshares! We have a very supportive author community here, but sometimes the forum isn’t the best way to communicate. There is a community Slack which has been set up for questions, fun, and networking - and we’d love to invite you to it!