Writing a book in the past was an arduous process. It required not only the writing skills but the ability to get into a major publisher’s office. Often it required you to be referred into the office.

Nowadays you can self-publish with no upfront costs. You don’t have to purchase 1,000 copies and hope the books will sell. You don’t have to hawk your wares to make your money back.

We now have ebooks and print on demand that allows anyone that wants to be a writer (and who is willing to do the work and write the book) to be able to have a published book.

One great example of self-publishing is Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Amazon has created an amazing platform that allows you to offer a digital copy of your book via Kindle. If you are willing to sell your book only on Amazon for a specific period of time, you can benefit from being KDP Select. This allows your book to be available for Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner’s Lending Library. You share in the profits of those based on the number of pages that are read. Learn more about how those profits are calculated on Royalties in Kindle Unlimited.

With Kindle publishing, you can choose either digital books or printed books. You can publish your books in digital and print for free and sell on Amazon to millions of readers. You can earn up to 70% royalty on Kindle eBook and 60% on paperback sales.

Amazon’s print on demand (now a part of KDP but used to be called Create Space) allows you to have your books printed without upfront costs. You load your book onto the platform. When someone buys, Amazon prints the book. You get the commission.

Amazon also allows you to get author copies. This is a great way to have copies of your book on hand with limited funds. You can purchase 1-999+ copies. If you want to give them away, sell them locally, or have them available for speaking gigs, you can buy them. You pay the creation cost. So, for example, if you are selling your book for $9.99, you woundn’t pay $9.99 for each book. You would pay the cost (let’s say it’s $2.35 — cost varies dramatically depending on number of pages, type of cover, etc.).