SELF-PUBLISHING

Page updated/links checked: 12/28/25

Issues to Consider

There are several options for self-publishing. Which you choose will depend on your goals, your budget, and whether you’re comfortable with DIY.

• Retailers’ self-publishing platforms. Amazon makes it possible (and free) to self-publish to the Kindle via Kindle Direct Publishing. KDP is unquestionably the biggest platform–by far–but there are others, including Barnes & Noble Press, Apple Books, and Rakuten Kobo’s Kobo Writing Life.
• Book distributors/aggregators. These services allow you to self-publish to multiple platforms and retailers, and may provide conversion and formatting as well. Draft2Digital, IngramSpark, and StreetLib are examples. To reach the widest possible audience, many self-publishers use both a platform and an aggregator.
• Self-publishing service providers. These companies offer more of a soup-to-nuts option, taking care of conversion, formatting, cover art, etc.–all the things you’d have to do on your own with the other two options.  Most distribute to a wide variety of retailers and platforms. The downside is an often-hefty fee and less flexibility and control. Also, while there are reliable providers, there’s widespread shadiness of this segment of the self-publishing industry (see the paragraphs on Author Solutions in the Cautions section, below)

There are some other things to think about as well. (This is a very general overview; in the Resources section, below, you’ll find links to websites, articles, and experts that will help you go in-depth.)

Ebook only, or ebook plus print?

The overwhelming majority of sales for self-publishers comes from ebooks. However, there are good reasons to also publish in print.

It gives readers alternatives, which is always beneficial. Plus, if you have direct access to your audience, a print edition can help you reach them. You may have a way of selling directly to customers (a chef who wants to make a cookbook available in their restaurant, for instance), or of exploiting “back of the room” situations (someone who lectures or conducts workshops and can sell books at those occasions).

Even so, many authors choose to forgo what’s typically a low-selling option for self-publishers (see the section on the challenges of print, below), and publish exclusively in ebook form. There’s no right or wrong here–but it is something you need to think about.

DIY or package?

Should you DIY via KDP or IngramSpark or a similar platform, or buy a package from publishing service provider that will do it all for you? DIY is more work but gives you more control; buying a package may be easier but can be expensive, and publishing service providers are not always reliable. Again, there’s no right or wrong, but you do need to carefully investigate your options.

Investment

If you use KDP, IngramSpark, or another of the free options, self-publishing doesn’t have to cost a penny.

That’s probably fine if writing is just a hobby. But if you’re serious about launching a career, you do need to consider investing resources in the services necessary to produce a professional, high-quality book. Today’s self-publishing is a crowded and extremely competitive field, in which authors have to work as hard to stand out as any of their trad-pubbed brethren. To do that, quality editing, design, cover art, and marketing are musts.

It’s not hard to find freelancers who are offering these services, often at very reasonable prices that will cost you far less than the inflated packages sold by self-publishing service providers. (See the Resources section for links to help you find service providers.) Hiring freelancers is an area in which you really need to be careful, though–not just of potential scams but of unqualified people. See the Cautions section, below.

Terms and Conditions

Any self-pub platform/service provider will have Terms and Conditions or Terms of Use to which you must agree in order to use the service. Be sure to read these carefully—and make sure you understand them. They typically give the platform sweeping powers over your books and your account—including the right to delete either or both for violation of often vaguely-stated content guidelines—and the right to make changes to these terms at will, including changes in payment.

Some examples: the Great Erotica Panic of 2013, in which Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers deleted hundreds of self-published ebooks over content guidelines violations; Amazon’s 2014 reduction in royalty rates for self-published audiobooks; and the recent controversy over Audible ACX’s reader returns program.

Market and genre

Self-publishing works best for fiction in general, and genre fiction in particular. For instance, in a 2017 annual survey from Smashwords (now merged with Draft2Digital), romance accounted for 73% of best-selling titles, with fantasy next at 9%, and YA following at 5%. Over 87% of Smashwords’ sales were fiction, and series titles sold better than standalones, especially if the first book was free.

Things hadn’t changed much in 2021, according to a report by K-Lytics, a site that closely tracks Amazon Kindle sales. Fiction far outsold nonfiction, and romance, mystery/thriller/suspense, and science fiction/fantasy led sales in all fiction categories, with YA and children’s books trailing behind. Memoirs and self-help books–genres popular with self-publishers but not with readers–were even farther down the list.

Draft2Digital offers similar statistics for 2022. Romance represents 55% of its unit sales, with mysteries, fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers all among the to 25 most popular categories.

What kind of book you’ve written, therefore, should figure into your decision on whether and how to self-publish.

Competition

As already noted, the explosive growth of self-publishing has attracted legions of authors, creating an intensely crowded marketplace where it’s harder than ever to stand out. Be aware that you’re launching yourself into a crowded and highly competitive field.

The Challenges of Print

As noted above, there are good reasons to have a print edition (though rarely only print). Print is a challenging format for self-publishers, though.

Distribution

Some authors choose to self-publish in print because they hope to gain brick-and-mortar bookstore and/or library presence. However, limited distribution and nonstandard sales practices make that difficult.

Most self-pub platforms/service providers offer a mix of online and wholesale distribution. But for placement in libraries and brick-and-mortar stores, a direct sales component is needed, such as a distributor with a sales team that sells books directly to the people who acquire for those outlets. Without this, libraries and physical booksellers are unlikely to know your book exists. This is a frequent source of disappointment for authors, who often assume that wholesale distribution will lead to bookstore presence.

Another potential disadvantage for print self-published books: by long tradition, booksellers are accustomed to a particular set of buying protocols, which include discounts of 40% or more, 60- or 90-day billing, and full returnability. Self-publishing platforms/service providers don’t necessarily offer industry-standard discounts, and most require that orders be pre-paid. And while some services do set up returnability if you pay an extra fee, it may be a restrictive policy that booksellers won’t find attractive–or you may have to eat the cost of returns.

High cover prices

Self-pub platforms/service providers use print-on-demand technology to produce print books, which allows books to be printed one at a time or in small lots, rather than in larger print runs of several hundred or several thousand. Because it can’t take advantage of economies of scale, though, POD is a more expensive printing process, per unit, than traditional offset printing–meaning that POD books often must be priced higher than their offset-printed counterparts in order to cover costs and yield a profit.

Self-publishing platforms/service providers recoup their production expense and overhead at the point of sale, by including them in a book’s retail price. Even where authors are allowed to set their own retail prices, they must do so on top of a fixed production cost. The more paper it takes to produce the book, the more expensive it will be–so if your book is very long, it may cost more–possibly a lot more–than a similar book from a traditional publisher, which can be a disincentive for readers.

Poor physical quality

POD-produced books can be almost indistinguishable from offset-printed trade paperbacks. But some self-pub service providers skimp on paper and cover stock, and don’t pay enough attention to production standards. Books from these companies can be shoddy in appearance, with covers that curl and pages that fall out as you’re reading them (a good reason to order a book or two from any platform or provider you’re thinking of using, so you can assess quality).

Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing?

Publishing industry expert Jane Friedman breaks publishing down into ten key paths, broadly categorized as traditional (including Big 5 houses such as Penguin Random House, smaller presses, academic publishers) and non-traditional (including DIY self-publishing, publishing service providers, so-called hybrid publishers).

There are meaningful distinctions to be made between all of them, but they really boil down to a binary choice: self-publish or publish traditionally?

It’s a somewhat polarizing question. Many self-publishing advocates portray traditional publishing as backward, elitist, and abusive. Traditional publishers, they say, hold writers’ rights captive and add no value beyond, possibly, print distribution. Self-publishing, on the other hand, is at the forefront of digital innovation, offers unlimited freedom and control, and pays better (at least, on a per-book basis).

In the traditional publishing community, there are still those who see self-publishing as a gigantic slush pile, a realm of narcissistic losers unleashing a tsunami of bad writing on the world. They decry the cheapening of literature and the loss of traditional values. They dismiss self-publishing successes as flukes and outliers.

These biased views miss the point of the self-publishing revolution—that writers now have options. Where once it was traditional publishing or nothing, now there are multiple possible paths to publication and success. The great thing about being an author in the twenty-first century is that you get to choose.

Both self-publishing and traditional publishing offer benefits and disadvantages. Which is best for you depends on your needs and goals. They’re also not mutually exclusive–plenty of writers are choosing to utilize both, self-publishing some books and traditionally publishing others.

Some tips for making this very important decision–especially for first-time authors:

• Understand your options. Invest some time in learning and research, to make sure you have a solid basic knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of both self-publishing and traditional publishing. Unless you are familiar with the whole range of options available to you, you can’t truly make an informed decision.
• Think about what kind of writer you are. What you write, how you write, and where you are in your writing journey all should factor into your choice. Are you prolific or slow? Self-publishing can be a good choice for prolific writers, but in a world of short attention spans, slow writers may find it harder to build an audience. Do you write genre fiction or literary fiction? Self-publishing can work well for genre writers, but for literary fiction, the traditional publishing route may be a better way to go.
• Decide how comfortable you are with DIY. Regardless of what method you use to self-publish, successful self-publishing is entrepreneurship. It’s also a lot of work: self-publishers must not only do everything an author does, they must do everything a publisher does. For authors who like being their own bosses, that may be ideal. For those who aren’t comfortable with the idea of running their own businesses, traditional publishing may be a better option.
• Be skeptical of the hype. There’s a tremendous amount of hype and proselytizing around self-publishing, and not all the information you may find is accurate, complete, or representative. Beware of self-publishing evangelists who claim that any author can make a living by self-publishing, or who present self-publishing as the only viable (or honorable) route to success, or who spend a lot of time decrying the horrors of the traditional publishing model. Ignore traditional publishing Scrooges who portray self-publishing as an endless slush pile or complain about the dumbing down of literature.

Self-publishing is an option and a choice. Like traditional publishing, it isn’t right for everyone. Which you select should depend on your abilities, your goals, and your writing…not on someone else’s word for what’s “right” or “best”. There’s only what’s right or best for you.

Bad Reasons to Choose Self-Publishing

There are good reasons to choose self-publishing. There are also bad ones.

• Because you think traditional publishers aren’t interested in new writers. This is false. Every publisher is looking for the next big thing, and they are well aware that breakout authors often come from the ranks of the previously unpublished. If you have a marketable manuscript (which really is the biggest “if” for any author), never having been published before won’t prejudice your chances.
• Because someone told you that self-publishing is the best route to success. It may be the best route for some authors, but not for all, and not necessarily for you. Make your own decisions.
• Because you think it’s easier. If you just want to slap your unedited manuscript up on Amazon, self-publishing is indeed pretty easy. If you want to produce a professional product, however, there’s a lot of work involved. From hiring editors and copy editors, to procuring cover art, to marketing and promotion, you must take on the entire burden–and expense–of the services that a traditional publisher would provide for you.
• Because you’re impatient. Self-publishing will get your work on the market a lot faster than traditional publishing will. But it still requires time and care to create and market a quality product. Rushing a book into the world doesn’t benefit you–or readers.
• Because you don’t want an editor tampering with your golden prose. Every writer needs an editor. If you want your self-published book to stand out in an extremely competitive market, hiring a competent editor is one of the best investments you can make. (There’s more on editing, along with tips on vetting freelance editors, at Writer Beware’s Editors page.)
• Because you want to make a living. Many authors are making good money–or even getting rich–from self-publishing books. Will you be one of them? Maybe–but there are no guarantees. As with traditional publishing, self-publishing is not a golden ticket. The battle against obscurity must be fought by all writers, no matter how they decide to publish.
• Because you think it will make you totally independent. Self-publishing gives you far more control than traditional publishing does. But you’re still subject to the policies and content guidelines of whatever service or platform you use–and if you violate those policies or guidelines, they can make you disappear. You’re only as independent as your service provider will allow you to be.

Cautions

The growth of self-publishing options has spawned an explosion of services aimed at self-publishers. Problem is, not all of them are worthwhile–or honest.

Always check the reputation of any service provider you’re thinking of using. Good resources for doing that: the Alliance of Independent Authors’ annotated list of publishing service providers, the Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Check forum at Absolute Write, and the Kindle boards.

Scams

• Bait and switch editing schemes, where someone posing as a reader contacts a writer about (sometimes imaginary) errors in his or her book.
• Pay-to-play magazines that charge enormous fees for author ads and features.
• Conman publicists, soliciting successful self-publishers, taking the money and running.
• Pay-to-play bookstores, where shelf space will cost you.
• Junk marketing–cheap to provide, sold at a huge markup, and of dubious value for book promotion. Examples: press releases, video trailers, paid interviews and book reviews, book fair representation, social media marketing.
• Profiteering writing contests that aren’t about honoring writers, but about making money for the contest sponsor.
• Book to Screen packages that charge a premium for services that won’t help you sell movie rights.
• AI-driven book marketing scams that are based overseas and aggressively target writers by email.

Unqualified/inexperienced service providers

Like unqualified literary agents, unqualified editors, publicists, designers, and artists are often entirely well-intentioned, but just don’t have the skills to do a professional job. They may seem appealing because their fees are often lower than the professionals’, but don’t be tempted–you get what you pay for.

Always check the credentials of any service provider you’re thinking of hiring (and those of their staff). People who offer a service should have work experience that’s relevant to the service they’re offering. A love of reading, a degree in English, or a career as a teacher doesn’t necessarily qualify someone to be an editor, for example. If you can’t find information on a provider’s background, or you request it and encounter resistance or refusal, walk away. (See the Editors page for more, including how to vet a freelance editor.)

Look for samples of their work (book covers they’ve designed, books they’ve edited, etc.; a reputable provider should be glad to share this information). Ask for references. Plug their names into search engines to see if you can find recommendations or complaints (here’s a horror story to illustrate how important this is). Check Absolute Write. Email Writer Beware; we’ll tell you if we’ve gotten any complaints.

Marketing packages

Almost all self-publishing service providers, sell marketing services and packages. These are typically heavily based on junky, ineffective methods (see above) or things you could do yourself (setting up and maintaining social media accounts, creating websites). This is an extremely lucrative area for publishing service providers, since most of these items are cheap to provide and can be sold at a substantial markup. For writers, however, they are rarely worth their often exorbitant price tags.

Other marketing strategies to avoid range from the pointless (posting your book and/or information about you on websites the marketer owns–the odds that such websites will get much traffic is slim) to the exploitative (offering you vanity radio spots, or interviewing you for the marketer’s own radio and TV shows–these shows are often on public access channels or stream online, and have tiny audiences) to the downright deceptive (claiming to pitch your book to Hollywood producers or market it to traditional publishers–this may entail a spam-style mass-mail approach or a listing in a catalog-style publication, but either way it will be ignored). And they can be eye-poppingly expensive. For instance, AuthorHouse charges more than $4,000 to produce a “premium book video”.

Beware also of the many marketing and PR services that aggressively solicit authors with out-of-the-blue offers of promotional services. Many of these sound too good to be true…because they are. Most such services are scams. See A Special Warning, below.

Deceptive self-publishing service providers

Self-publishing service providers can be quite deceptive in the way they present themselves, implying a greater potential for success than actually exists, glossing over the challenges of self-publishing, and overstating the value of the overpriced, ineffective marketing services they sell. Others are outright scams.

When evaluating publishing service providers, it’s important to remember that you are a customer purchasing a product–not a writer selected by a publisher. Sales pitches are not intended to benefit you, but to motivate you to pull out your credit card. Be skeptical of promises. Investigate before you buy.

See this article from author Joel Pitney for some helpful cautions: Hybrid Publishers and Paid Publishing Services: Red Flags to Watch For.

A special case: Author Solutions

The Author Solutions conglomerate owns a galaxy of assisted self-publishing imprints, including iUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford, AuthorHouse, Palibrio, Partridge, and Booktango. Author Solutions and its imprints have among the largest number of author complaints, and poorest reputation, of any similar company in terms of customer service, product quality, and transparency.

This blog post, which I wrote in 2012 after Author Solutions was purchased by Pearson (the former parent company of Penguin), provides a rundown on these and other problems. Pearson sold Author Solutions to a venture capital company at the end of 2015, but other than that, nothing has changed.

Author Solutions is notorious not just for quality issues, but for its hard-sell sales tactics and its out-of-the-blue solicitations. It employs a variety of deceptive marketing tactics to promote its services, including sockpuppet social media accounts and an extensive network of fake publisher-matching websites whose sole purpose is to steer authors to Author Solutions imprints. While it was owned by Pearson, it aggressively used the connection with Penguin in sales calls, falsely suggesting that using an Author Solutions imprint would get authors closer to a Big 5 publisher.

In addition to its branded imprints, Author Solutions runs an array of assisted self-publishing divisions for traditional publishers: West Bow Press (Thomas Nelson/Zondervan), Balboa Press (Hay House), Archway Publishing (Simon & Schuster), and LifeRich Publishing (Reader’s Digest Association).

These divisions all emphasize their connection with their parent publishers, and Writer Beware often hears from writers who believe that choosing Balboa Press will give them access to Hay House’s marketing department, or that their books will become part of Simon & Schuster’s distribution network if they use Archway Publishing.

Again, this is deceptive marketing. Simon & Schuster and the rest collect a percentage of profits, but otherwise have no hand in running the divisions, which are entirely administered and staffed by Author Solutions. All authors are really getting is an Author Solutions publishing package plus the glamour of a famous name.

As DIY self-publishing via KDP, Smashwords, etc. has grown in popularity, the customer base for Author Solutions and its imitators has shrunk. As of 2018, output for all Author Solutions imprints, including those it runs for traditional publishers, had dropped by more than half since its high point in 2011.

A Special Warning: Publishing Scams From Overseas

Over the past few years there’s been a huge influx of publishing scams from overseas. Mostly based in Pakistan and the Philippines, they employ spoofed phone numbers, false addresses, and sales reps with American- and European-sounding aliases to make it appear that they’re located in the USA, UK, or Canada. Their primary targets are English-speaking writers who are looking for self-publishing and/or marketing services.

Although the scams pose as self-publishing service providers, offering a variety of publishing, production, and marketing services just as reputable service providers do, writers who sign up soon discover the difference. Delivered services are often of substandard quality, or may not be delivered at all, with elaborate excuses to explain nonperformance. There’s unrelenting sales pressure to spend more and more money on items the scammer claims are essential: a screenplay to be pitched to production companies, book fair “representation”, a radio or TV spot with a host who allows the scammer to sell their services. If books are published (and they often aren’t), writers may never receive royalty statements or payments. Writers who ask too many questions, or balk at spending more money, may simply be ghosted.

Signing up with a publishing scam can also set writers up for more serious fraud: book order scams requiring large upfront payments, supposedly to print and ship books to physical bookstores (neither of which actually happens); fake contracts from major publishers, also requiring large fees; bogus book-to-film offers from famous production companies requiring sizeable “investments”. To make these frauds seem more credible, scammers may pose as “independent” literary agents, or impersonate real literary agents, publishers, or film producers.

Writer Beware has heard from writers who’ve lost enormous amounts of money, in many cases for goods and services they never received, or who have lost control of their books after the scammer closed down or ghosted them.

How to protect yourself? Fortunately, overseas publishing scams have a number of telltale markers.

• Cold-call contact by phone and email. Out-of-the-blue contact is the main way overseas publishing scammers acquire clients. Often they’ll claim your book has been recommended to them, or was discovered by one of their book scouts, or evaluated by a literary organization or traditional publisher. With so many publishing scammers competing for customers, any out-of-the-blue solicitation related to publishing or movie rights that you can’t directly tie to a contact or query you yourself made is highly likely to be a scam.
• Republishing or “rebranding” of your self-published book. This is an extremely common pitch by overseas publishing scammers (especially those from the Philippines). It may be framed as a strategy to improve your sales, or as a prerequisite to transitioning you to a Big 5 publishing contract, but in reality it’s a way to draw you in so you can be subjected to upselling pressure or targeted for the kinds of fraud mentioned above.
• Ghostwriting or book writing services. This is a major marker for publishing scams from Pakistan. Not every publishing service provider that offers writing services will turn out to be fraudulent, but ghostwriting is such a common feature of overseas scams that its  presence should always prompt caution.
• Bogus products and services for sale. Are you being told that your book must be licensed or re-licensed in order to be republished? That you need a Separation of Book Rights Order or an Independent Publishing Registration? That you have to buy Book Returns Insurance? That a Global Copyright Certificate or International Book Seal is a publishing requirement? These are all entirely fake things that scammers have invented in order to extract money from writers. (If you’re being pitched a product and aren’t sure it’s legit, contact Writer Beware and we’ll give you an opinion.)
• Claims of expertise that can’t be verified because the website includes no staff names or  bios or there’s no portfolio of completed projects. At a minimum, a reputable publishing service provider should provide examples of its work.
• False information. Publishing scammers’ websites often include falsehoods that can be spotted with some double-checking. For example, the scammer may claim to have been in business since 2018, but its web domain wasn’t registered until 2024. Some of the books featured on the website may turn out not to exist, or were published long before the scammer’s supposed founding date. Testimonials may be fake or unverifiable: no last names, a gender mismatch between images and names, book titles that don’t exist. Or if there’s a list of staff, reverse image searches on accompanying images may show that they’re stock or stolen or generated with AI.
• Duplicate websites. Publishing scammers often do business under multiple names (here’s one extreme example). Searching on a distinctively-worded phrase or sentence from the website can turn these up.
• Names designed to deceive. Some publishing scammers choose names that they hope will cause writers to mistake them for a different (real) company. Multiple scammers use the Penguin name, for example (Penguin Book Writers, Penguin Random House Publishers, Penguin Books Publishers), and many scammers appropriate Amazon trademarks (Amazon Publishing Hub, KDP ProPublisher, Amazon Kindle Network). The presence of paid services identifies these copycats as scams. Neither major publishers like Penguin, nor self-pub platforms like Amazon, charge fees or have affiliates that do.
• English-language errors and phone callers with foreign accents. Overseas scams are owned and staffed primarily by people who speak English fluently, but as a second language. The advent of generative AI has made grammar and colloquial errors far less common on websites and in written text than they used to be, and may soon make it possible for sales reps to alter their voices so that they sound American or English. But these are still important markers (especially if you force the scammer to go off-script).

More detail on overseas publishing scams, from Writer Beware’s blog:

• Philippine publishing scams archive: a big list of companies Writer Beware is tracking (or has tracked: many are defunct)
• How to Spot a Ghostwriting Scam
• The Scam of Book Licensing
• The Scam of Book Returns Insurance
• The Impersonation List: agents, publishers, individuals, and organizations impersonated by overseas publishing scammers

Resources

If you do a websearch on any aspect of self-publishing, you’ll find a bewildering amount of information, much of it paid advertising or thinly-disguised self-promotion by paid service providers and online hucksters. It can be hard to figure out whom to trust.

The resources below–all of which are from reliable sources that have been checked by Writer Beware–will hopefully help you cut through the noise.

Finding a Publishing Service Provider or Platform, Checking Reputations

• The Alliance of Independent Authors provides this excellent annotated list of publishing service providers (including not just publishing services, but ebook discovery services, editorial and design services, and more) with advisories about those that are the subject of complaints.
• Good advice from editor and author Jane Friedman (a 2012 article that’s regularly updated): 10 Questions to Ask Before Committing to Any Publishing Service.
• A good spot to research the reputation of publishing service providers: the Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Check forum of the Absolute Write Water Cooler. Check the index to see if the service you’re interested in has already been discussed.
• The Writer Beware blog provides alerts and cautions on publishing service providers (and a lot else). To see if we’ve written anything about a company you’re interested in, plug its name into the search box.
• E-mail Writer Beware. We’ve assembled a large archive of documentation on companies and services that engage in questionable practices. Send us the names of any company or service you’d like to know about, and we’ll summarize for you any data that’s in our files. If we have no information, we’ll let you know that too.

Expert Self-Publishing Info and Advice

• The blog of author and authors’ advocate David Gaughran is an excellent information source on self-publishing and issues of interest to self-publishers.  He offers a helpful free introductory course called Starting From Zero, along with recommendations on service providers such as editors, designers, etc.
• Author Joanna Penn offers advice on self-publishing, marketing, and writing at The Creative Penn.
• Dave Chesson’s Kindlepreneur is a comprehensive free resource providing advice and info on writing, formatting, design, marketing, and many other aspects of self-publishing.
• The website of publishing coach Carla King offers paid courses, but there’s also a wealth of helpful free content.

Facts and Figures For Self-Publishers

• K-Lytics is a site that closely tracks sales on Amazon Kindle, breaking sales down monthly by category and genre. It also tracks bestsellers in various genres, and produces special reports that drill down into subgenres. It’s a wealth of up-to-the-minute information–and is correspondingly pricey to subscribe. If you’re a career-minded self-publisher, though, the info here is gold.
• From the Alliance of Independent Authors, a recent, wide-ranging overview of facts and figures about self-publishing.
• A 2023 survey of US authors by the Authors Guild includes information on self-publishers’ income.
• This survey of author-publishers from NetGalley reveals how much they budget on their books–and what they invest in.
• This 2018 survey of self-publishing children’s authors from author Hannah Holt includes lots of data here about sales and earnings, as well as how self-publishing compares to traditional publishing.

General Resources

• The Alliance of Independent Authors is a global professional advocacy group for self-publishers. Its Self-Publishing Advice blog covers subjects of interest to self-publishers, and it also provides a very useful directory of vetted service providers.
• The Kboards–news and discussion from Kindle self-publishers. This is a treasure trove of information on just about every aspect of self-publishing.
• From author and editor Jane Friedman, Start Here: How to Self-Publish Your Book. This is a really comprehensive resource, as is Jane’s website overall.
• Indie Pub 101 is SFWA’s comprehensive resource on self-publishing, created by successful self-publishers (it’s not specific to speculative fiction writers).
• From self-pub expert David Gaughran, How to Self-Publish a Book in 10 Steps.
• Editor Lauren Bailey identifies the 13 most common self-publishing mistakes to avoid.
• The Savvy Self-Publisher is a series of interviews by publishing veteran Debra Englander with authors who’ve successfully self-published their books. The interviews include comments and advice from publishing experts.
• Reedsy.com is an online marketplace where editors, designers, illustrators and others offer their services. There is some level of vetting at Reedsy, but Writer Beware doesn’t know how extensive it is, so it’s a good idea to do further research on anyone you’re thinking of approaching.
• From Kindlepreneur, How Much Does it (Really) Cost to Publish a Book?
• More on the costs of self-publishing from author and self-publishing expert Joanna Penn.
• A 2016 survey by Library Journal assessed librarians’ views of self-published books: what they’re most likely to buy, obstacles to acquisition, and issues of quality. This is an older article, but the challenges it cites haven’t changed much.

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