Looking to elevate your writing career? Publishing your own book represents a significant achievement, particularly if you manage to reach a bestsellers list or two.
Many aspiring authors feel discouraged by the obstacles involved in securing a deal with a traditional publisher. The process often involves creative compromises, complex contract negotiations, and dealing with various intermediaries.
Here's the encouraging part: Independent authors have numerous pathways to success available today. Traditional publishers only accept a tiny fraction of submitted manuscripts—somewhere between 1% and 2%—leaving countless talented writers without options. This reality has made self-publishing an increasingly attractive alternative.
Naturally, this route still demands dedication. You'll need thorough preparation, persistence, and a willingness to invest effort into your project.
This guide will walk you through the essential steps for bringing your self-published book to market.
Understanding Self-Publishing
Self-publishing means maintaining complete authority over your book's journey from concept to consumer. You handle everything from writing and editing to design, publication, and sales, without transferring control to a traditional publishing house.
Traditional publishers manage distribution, cover creation, and promotional efforts after accepting your manuscript. In return, authors surrender some creative authority and a substantial portion of their earnings (frequently 85% to 90%).
As an independent publisher, you oversee every stage: selecting your editor, designing your cover, and determining your sales channels. You retain larger profits, work on your own timeline, and preserve full creative control. The trade-off? You shoulder all responsibilities and initial expenses.
Why Choose Independent Publishing?
Maintain Ownership of Your Creative Work
Traditional publishers typically purchase the intellectual property rights to your work. While some writers accept this arrangement, it creates problems for others, especially those writing nonfiction.
Business owners who've developed unique methodologies over decades may not want a publisher controlling that system. Similarly, authors sharing personal narratives often prefer deciding how their stories are presented. For these creators, retaining intellectual property rights is a crucial advantage of independent publishing.
Increase Your Earnings Per Sale
Traditional publishing routes revenue through the publishing company before paying royalties to authors. These payments are often minimal—frequently just a dollar or less per printed book.
Independent publishing involves distributor fees, but without a publisher taking the lion's share, authors can earn significantly more in many cases.
Make Your Own Business and Creative Choices
As an independent author, you control how your book is used. You can offer free copies, sell in bulk at discounts, or exchange books for media coverage or speaking opportunities. Traditional publishers often restrict these promotional tactics since their revenue model depends on individual sales.
You can even sell your independently published work to a traditional publisher later if an attractive opportunity arises. You're never locked into one path.
Income Potential for Independent Authors
Traditional publishing typically offers these royalty structures:
- Hardcover editions: Generally 10% to 15% royalties
- Paperback editions: Approximately 6% to 8%
- Digital editions: Between 25% and 40%
- Agent commissions: Take 15% to 20%, and advances must be earned back before additional payments
Independent publishing offers substantially better financial terms:
- Digital books: Royalty rates typically span from 70% to potentially 100%, varying by platform and price point
- Physical copies (paperback/hardcover): Generally around 60% to 100% per sale, particularly with print-on-demand arrangements
Major platforms like Amazon KDP, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble Press commonly provide approximately 70% royalties for digital editions.
Recent data shows the median independent author earned roughly $12,800 in 2024, more than double typical traditional publishing income, with a growing segment earning $50,000 or more annually.
Step 1: Research Your Market and Audience
Like most ventures, independent publishing requires thorough market research. This means examining other authors' work, assessing their approaches, spotting gaps in the market, and defining your ideal readership. While research might seem tedious, understanding your audience early simplifies selling your book later.
During your market research:
- Determine your genre. Genre encompasses more than just a category. It influences story structure, writing approach, and word choice. A children's book might describe an elegant dress as "pretty and delightful," while a thriller might call it "sleek and sophisticated." Grasping your genre's conventions helps you write effectively for your readers.
- Locate your niche. While exploring your genre, watch for topics, plot elements, or themes that writers haven't adequately covered but readers request. Reader comments on forums or review platforms reveal what audiences want most.
- Analyze your competition. Competitive analysis involves examining strategies used by others in your field. Reviewing bestseller lists or popular book clubs shows successful approaches you can adapt. This includes elements like the themes they emphasize or how they distinguish themselves from other authors.
Step 2: Polish Your Manuscript with Professional Editing
Refining a manuscript often proves most challenging for new authors. Your work may never feel completely finished, and you can easily get trapped in continuous revision cycles. Independent publishing doesn't provide the professional editing teams available through agencies, so you'll primarily serve as your own editor.
To ensure your book appears as polished as traditionally published works, follow these steps:
Review Your Manuscript Personally
Before sharing your initial draft with anyone, read it yourself as if you're part of your target readership. While reviewing everything again seems overwhelming, a complete read-through helps you view your creation with fresh eyes. You can then refine or adjust your work based on what you discover.
Get Feedback from Beta Readers
Search online forums or review platforms for people willing to read your unfinished manuscript and provide honest feedback. These volunteers, called "beta readers," gather in communities such as Absolute Write Water Cooler. Find someone who enjoys your chosen genre and request their input. This stage focuses on overall readability and story flow rather than fixing grammar or spelling errors.
Work with Professional Editors
Your book will compete with traditionally published titles in the same marketplaces. To achieve comparable polish, work with these editor types:
- Content editor: Examines your manuscript and recommends structural improvements, like removing or adding sections
- Fact checker: For nonfiction works, confirms your claims and research accuracy
- Copy editor: Refines your manuscript with grammar and spelling corrections
- Proofreader: Conducts a final review to catch any remaining mistakes before publication
Save this step for last, since you don't want to pay someone to find minor errors you can catch yourself. Once you and at least one beta reader have reviewed your work, you can hire an editor for professional refinement. Reedsy offers editing specialists in different genres, while Upwork helps you find editors within your budget. Additional platforms include Fiverr and Guru for freelance editing services.
Step 3: Design a Compelling Book Cover
Despite the classic saying about not judging books by their covers, most people do exactly that. Your cover creates the first impression as potential readers encounter it in physical stores, online marketplaces, your website, and everywhere else your book appears.
Whether you create the cover yourself or hire a freelancer, consider these factors:
Can Readers See the Text Clearly?
While the front image draws initial attention, ensure it doesn't hide other crucial elements, such as the book's title and your name. The title should be clear, visible, and unobstructed by graphics or colors. Clean lettering in a straightforward font always works better than elaborate, difficult-to-read scripts.
Does the Design Flow Consistently?
Design consistency extends to your book's back cover and spine. While these elements may not appear in thumbnail images, the physical version of your book reveals the back cover design. Many readers also care about spine appearance on their bookshelves. Maintain the same visual style as your front cover to ensure design unity.
Is the Cover Image Sharp and Simple?
When using graphics like photographs or artwork, keep them straightforward. Overly complex, colorful, or confusing cover images can immediately discourage potential buyers. Also consider how the image appears when reduced. If you're selling online, the cover must look good as a small thumbnail without losing clarity.
For creating your cover, you can hire designers through freelance platforms like Reedsy and Upwork. Review potential candidates' work portfolios to find the artist who best matches your vision. Prefer doing it yourself? Design tools like Canva, Fotor, and Visme work well for bringing your cover concept to life.
Step 4: Select Your Publishing Platform
You've reached the stage where you're ready to transform your book's components into a physical product for distribution to retailers and wholesalers. Now you need to choose the independent publishing platform you'll use to move from draft to final product.
Print-on-demand Publishing
If you lack storage space for inventory, consider the print-on-demand approach. This involves using a third-party publisher to print and ship your books when sales occur.
Print on demand works ideally for independent publishers. It conserves time and money since you can outsource production and distribution to a third party.
Publishing through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing
Amazon's independent publishing service, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), enables users to print books on demand when sales happen. KDP's platform is user-friendly, and Amazon recommends books to readers whose preferences match published genres.
KDP uses print-on-demand fulfillment, meaning you only pay after selling a book. A 60% royalty rate applies to paperbacks sold on Amazon's marketplace through KDP, so you receive 40% of the listed price. Keep in mind that printing expenses (which vary based on page count and paper selection) are also subtracted from your earnings. Amazon provides a printing cost and royalty calculator for estimating your final royalty amounts.
One drawback to KDP is its exclusivity requirement for digital books. Specifically, if you sell ebooks on Amazon via KDP, you cannot sell them on other platforms.
Selling through Your Store with Shopify and Lulu
Lulu is an independent publishing platform providing tools for printing and distributing your ebooks and paperbacks. The platform offers numerous page types, binding options, and sizes that give you flexibility in developing your cover and manuscript into a physical product.
Lulu works well for Shopify entrepreneurs pursuing independent publishing. Using the Lulu Direct app on your Shopify store, you can have books printed and shipped when sales occur, automating key supply chain functions.
Additional print-on-demand options include IngramSpark for bookstore distribution, Bookvault for physical inventory, and Blurb, which includes design tools for photo books.
Step 5: Format Your Book Properly
A book's format determines how text, pages, covers, and chapters are arranged before printing starts. Though your manuscript may be perfectly edited, make sure to format:
- The height and width of your pages (called the trim)
- The font, font size, and line spacing of the text
- The book's front matter (everything before the story starts, such as the title page, author page, publishing information, and table of contents)
- The back matter (everything after the story, such as appendices, indexes, and bibliographies)
Beyond these components, your book requires an ISBN (International Standard Book Number). This 13-digit code functions as a universal identifier for your book across different platforms. The ISBN also serves as proof of ownership over the book's content, making it essential for independent publishers.
You can obtain a free ISBN for your book through Kindle Direct Publishing. If you're using another independent publishing platform that doesn't provide one, you can request a universal ISBN through myidentifiers.com.
Understanding Book Metadata and BISAC Codes
Once your book is ready for sale, metadata makes it discoverable. This includes your title, subtitle, author name, description, ISBN, keywords, and categories.
A vital metadata component is the BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) subject code. These standardized categories are used throughout the publishing industry, from Amazon to physical bookstores, to organize and recommend books.
Appropriate BISAC codes ensure your book competes in the correct category. Choose too broadly, and you'll face overwhelming competition. Choose too narrowly, and readers won't discover you. Authors typically select multiple BISAC codes, so your book appears across different but relevant categories.
Step 6: Build Your Online Store
Create your own website to market your book, regardless of whether you also list it on platforms such as Amazon or in physical retail locations.
Selling directly offers significant advantages. Amazon and bookstores don't share customer information with you. When you sell directly, you earn more per book and collect customer contact information, which is a major benefit over selling exclusively through Amazon without knowing who purchased your book.
Shopify provides an excellent platform for authors. Once configured, it's straightforward for authors to manage. Shopify handles many storefront elements that authors prefer not to manage themselves, like bundling and upselling features.
Step 7: Promote Your Book Effectively
Regardless of your book's quality, you must actively market it. Try these strategies:
- Post excerpts on social platforms. Share writing samples to engage readers, then direct them to your book's purchase page
- Gather reader reviews. Connect with early readers and request honest reviews. Use apps like Opinew and Trustify that integrate with both Shopify and Amazon to manage reviews
- Collaborate with social media influencers. Work with influencers whose followers match your target readers to broaden your book's reach
- Engage with literary media. Reach out to bloggers and podcasters who cover your genre to request features or discussions. Build connections with media professionals in your subject area
- Develop valuable content. Add a blog to your Shopify store to attract readers. Create an SEO content strategy to improve your search result visibility
Publishing Costs to Anticipate
Here are the main areas of independent publishing that typically require financial investment:
Editing Expenses
Editing costs vary depending on the editing type needed, from copy editing to developmental edits, which can exceed $7 per page. For a standard 60,000-word novel, total editing expenses could surpass $2,500.
Cover Design and Formatting
Professional cover design ranges from a few hundred dollars to thousands, depending on your designer's experience. Layout formatting can be handled using free or affordable software like Vellum and Atticus.
ISBN Costs
An ISBN is necessary for retail distribution, whether physical or digital. In America, purchasing one ISBN with its barcode is $150, but buying ten at once (all with barcodes) costs $320, making bulk purchases more economical. ISBN pricing differs internationally, so investigate your options before buying.
Printing and Shipping Expenses
For authors printing physical books, factors like size, paper quality, color, and binding significantly impact costs. A black-and-white paperback of 24 to 108 pages printed through KDP runs about $2.30 each, whereas a typical 300-page volume costs approximately $5 when produced through their service.
Marketing Budget
Finally, promoting your book will likely require some financial investment, even if you handle marketing yourself. Promotional spending can vary widely, from minimal amounts for simple digital campaigns to substantial investments for premium advertising placements in respected literary publications.
With a hands-on approach, budget approximately $5,000 to $6,000. For results comparable to what traditional publishers achieve, anticipate spending between $15,000 and $20,000.
Ready to Begin Your Publishing Journey?
Now that you understand all the fundamental steps to independently publish a book, it's time to take action. Continue your research and identify the right partners and platforms for your objectives.
Begin conversations with potential editors, graphic designers, or promotional partners you might want on your team. Explore independent publishing platforms to determine which feels most suitable.
The foundation has been established. The rest is up to you!
Self-Publish Your Book FAQ
What Is Self-Publishing?
As opposed to entrusting a publishing house to take your manuscript and go through all the traditional publishing steps, self-publishing puts the work back in your hands. Self-publishing means writing, designing, distributing, and selling your book, among other creative and business activities normally reserved for another party.
What Are the Benefits of Self-Publishing?
While there’s a whole lot more independent work involved, self-publishing comes with many advantages. You have more ownership of your creative choices, both in the content of your book and the communications and campaigns around it. You can also make more money with self-publishing, though if you hit it big, then traditional routes may net you more exposure and revenue in the long run. Overall, you get far more agency in the choices you make.
Do You Need Professional Editors for Self-Publishing?
No matter how strong of a writer you are, there’s something to be said for getting editorial support. Beta readers, professional editors, and proofreaders can catch errors you may have missed and highlight areas of improvement, helping you transform a good manuscript into a genuinely powerful work of literary art.
Where Do You Publish Self-Published Books?
There are several viable ways to turn your work into a physical and digital product readers can purchase. You can opt for the print-on-demand approach, allowing a third-party to print and ship your book whenever someone purchases it. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing is another solid option for self-published authors, along with independent platforms like Lulu and Shopify.
How Much Does It Cost to Self-Publish a Book?
Self-publishing comes with many costs to consider. Professional editors can cost quite a bit, depending on how many editing rounds and contributors are involved, as can cover designers and formatters. ISBN costs add several hundred dollars to your budget, and printing and shipping costs can add up quickly. On top of that, you want to have $5,000 to $6,000 tucked away to market your book, at least initially.