Publishing Your Own Book

(updated 16 March 2023)

Publishing your own book or self-publishing is when you produce a book you have written without the involvement of an established publisher. It also includes publishing e-books and other works of expression.

When self-publishing, it is worthwhile to establish your own legal publishing business for the sake of professionalism, as well as protection. It is a form of Entrepreneurship where you are considered an independent publisher.

You then need to learn effective book production and marketing techniques in order to expand or grow your business, as well as to know about how to publish in the various formats: hardcopy, ebook, audio book, etc. You can do much of the work yourself or hire experts to help you.

The purpose of this section is to help you understand the basics of self-publishing so that you can become a successful independent publisher.

Publishing Contents

Basics Decide to start publishing business Organize business Printing preparations Selling books ePublishing

Resources Survey results

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Basics

Initial Considerations for Self-Publishing

Self-Publishing Overview

Decide to start publishing business

Achieve Your Goal to be Published

Routes to Getting Your Book Published

Reasons to Self-Publish

Deciding to Start a Publishing Business

Organize business

Starting a Self-Publishing Business

Setting Up Shop for a Self-Publishing Business

Activities in Running a Publishing Business

ISBN Used to Identify Your Book

Purchasing an ISBN Block

Printing preparations

Publishing Process – (soon)

Elements Influencing Bookstore Sales

Sequence of a Book Sale

Internal Structure of a Book

Designing Your Book Cover

ISBN Barcode Specifications

Adding ISBN Barcode to Your Book

Copyrighting Your Book

Printing

Print-on-Demand (POD) Options

Printing Costs through Lightning Source

Selling books

Selling Books Through Amazon Advantage Program

Selling Hardcopy Books Online

Selling Books From a Table

ePublishing

ePublishing Overview

Prepare to market

eBook Digital Rights Management

Preparing to Sell eBooks

Convert format

eBook File Formats

Exporting InDesign Book to PDF eBook

Converting Content to Amazon Kindle Format

Exporting with Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign

Using Calibre to Convert eBook Formats

Check Copy in eReader

eBook Readers

Kindle for PC eReader

Firefox EPUB Reader

Submit

Kindle Royalty Percentage

Resources

Publishing Resources

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Survey results

See results of survey questions