How to Budget Your First Self-Published Book on Amazon It is technically free, but here are some areas worth investing in to boost quality and sales of your self-published book.

Before using Amazon's self-publishing to share my first book with the world, I simply assumed that the whole process was completely free, but I was utterly wrong. There are "hidden" costs to self-publishing that you overlook until you finish writing the manuscript for your book.

Most writers assume that all they need to do is research, write, and publish, thinking that whatever they write is gold, instantly. However, they often forget that, "[t]o write is human, to edit is divine[,]" as Steven King wrote in his 2000 book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

What you need to know going in

The reality is that you will spend a lot of time writing, and spend your hard-earned money on hiring people to help you take your writing from average to good, at least.