Self-publishing
Self-published ebooks
You are the publisher. The store takes a cut; you keep the rest, and all of the work.
Self-publishing an ebook is no longer a consolation prize. For some genres — romance, crime, certain non-fiction — it is the main economy. You set the price, you write the blurb, you buy the cover, you run the ads, and you receive a majority of each sale rather than a tenth. The readers do not care who printed the spine. They care whether page two makes them turn to page three.
- Typical pay
- Store royalties are commonly 35% or 70% of the list price, depending on price band and territory. Income ranges from nothing to a full living. The median is closer to nothing; the mean is pulled up by people who treat it as a business.
- Ceiling
- Uncapped
- Speed
- First money in weeks
- Effort
- A job in itself
- Needs
- No book required
How it works
- 01
You upload a finished, proofread file to retailers (Amazon KDP, and usually at least one other route via a distributor).
- 02
You control metadata, pricing, categories, and the sample. The store handles payment and delivery.
- 03
You are paid on the store's schedule, minus their cut, withholding tax if relevant, and any ad spend.
How to start
- 01
Finish the book. Then pay a professional editor and a cover designer who works in your genre. This is not the place to save money.
- 02
Learn the metadata of your category — categories, keywords, pricing — as if it were a trade.
- 03
Publish more than one. A single self-published ebook is a leaflet; a shelf is a shop.
Watch out
- 01
Spending more on ads than you earn is a hobby with a dashboard.
- 02
Exclusivity deals (KDP Select) trade reach in one store for absence in others. Revisit the choice yearly.
- 03
VAT, tax, and US withholding are real. So is a reader who leaves a one-star review because of a typo on page one.
I have been a publisher since 1990, which means I have watched self-publishing go from vanity, to threat, to a parallel industry. The writers who make money at it are not the ones who 'disrupt publishing'. They are the ones who do the publishing: editing, design, scheduling, and the unromantic work of asking strangers to buy.