If you have an idea for a book and don’t have the money to go the traditional route, you can go about self-publishing your own book with the right guidance and tools.

Self-publishing requires that you perform some of the traditional work yourself and you hire other people or groups to complete the remainder of the services needed before publication takes place.

Start with your book idea:  will you be creating the outline for the book and writing the actual content text?  Will you be performing all of the editing and proofreading on your own?  If not, then the service of a copywriter is vital to the initial process.

Are you prepared to format the pagers, paginate the pages and have it completely ready for printing?  If not, then you will need to employ the services of someone to prepare the final pages for publication.

Are you an artist?  Do you have art or photos available for your cover?  Keep in mind that you need artwork for your cover and possibly artwork for the inside of your book, depending on your internal book outline and intent.  So, if you are not up for these tasks, you will need to hire an artist or graphic artist to perform all the necessary artwork for your book.

If you are prepared to go the traditional printing route, you are able to print thousands of copies for a low-per-book-cost, however you will need to pay a high premium to set the process up and risk losing profits if there are any book errors.  Now, if you would like to print on demand and have the flexibility available to make changes as you deem necessary, then you can go the alternative route to traditional printing; this is called Electronic Printing.

Electronic Printing offers several advantages over the latter because you save money, can make immediate changes, have a lot more time to find book sponsors and offers the advantage of printing books for different market audiences. Most writers will agree that the options available today offer a multitude of benefits and advantages over traditional book publishing, plus the added bonus of E-books, which gives many consumers their biggest need- instant gratification and return on money spent.  The more work you commit to complete yourself, the more money you will save in the production of your book.  You also have more control over the final results of your book.