What self-publishing actually costs on a budget
There are two lies you’ll hear about what it costs to self-publish a book.
The first is that it’s basically free: upload to Amazon, click publish, done. The second is that doing it properly costs thousands before you’ve sold a single copy. Both are wrong, and both are expensive — one in returns and bad reviews, the other in money you never needed to spend.
I’m writing this because I just did it on a shoestring myself, getting my debut ready for launch, and I kept wishing someone had laid out the real numbers in one place. So here it is: indie publishing on a budget, stage by stage, with the free option, the paid option, and what I actually did.
One thing before the numbers
If you have the budget to hire a brilliant cover artist and a professional editor — please do. These are skilled people whose work genuinely makes books better, and paying them keeps the whole indie ecosystem alive. None of this is an argument against that.
It’s just my honest account of doing it cheaply when I couldn’t spend much, with a plan to reinvest in those professionals when (if!) the sales come. That’s the order I chose: lean now, expand later. If you’re in the same boat, this is for you.
The cost nobody puts in the spreadsheet
Your time. Every “free” option here really means “free if your hours are worth nothing.” Formatting your own book is free and takes an afternoon; building an ARC team is free and takes weeks of messaging people. It’s a fair trade when you’re starting out — I made it on most of these — but go in knowing that free almost always means you do the work.
(Prices are accurate as of mid-2026. Always check before you buy.)
Stage by stage: free, paid, and what I did
| Stage | The free way | Typical paid range | What I did |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editing | Betas, critique partners, self-editing | Online tools free–£30 · copyedit £800–1,600 | Betas + self-edit + online tools |
| Cover | DIY in Canva | £30–150 premade · £150–800+ custom | Premade, from ~£30 |
| ISBN | Free KDP ISBN | UK ~£91 · US $125 | The free one |
| Formatting | Reedsy Studio, Kindle Create | Atticus $147 · Vellum ~$250 (Mac) | Reedsy, free |
| ARC & reviews | A Google Form, StoryGraph | BookFunnel ~£20–80/yr | Google Form + BookFunnel’s £20 tier |
| Proof copies | — | ~£4–7 a copy | Ordered two |
| Author platform | Free hosting, Instagram, free newsletter tier | Optional, later | Stayed free |
| Ads | Organic social | Amazon Ads, promo sites | A tiny test, ~£10 |
A little more on the ones that matter:
Editing is what decides your whole budget, and it’s where my opinion has shifted: you no longer need to pay a human just to proofread. Online tools — ProWritingAid, Grammarly, the free LanguageTool tier — catch the mechanical stuff, and reading a printed proof copy catches the rest. What tools can’t do is the judgment work: story (your betas handle most of that free) and a proper copyedit. So if you spend on editing, spend it there.
Cover is the one place I’d never skimp entirely — it’s the only marketing that runs on every thumbnail, forever. But you don’t need a £600 custom design. A premade cover (a designer’s pre-built design with your title dropped in) starts around £30 and looks completely professional, which is exactly what I used.
ISBN: the free KDP one works perfectly. Your book sells and ships the same; you’re just listed under Amazon’s imprint instead of your own. Buying your own is oddly pricey for what it gives a first-timer, so I took the free one.
Formatting is genuinely good for free now — Reedsy Studio exports clean ebook and print files in your browser. Paid tools like Atticus and Vellum are lovely, but they earn their cost once you’re publishing repeatedly, not on book one.
Proof copies are the cheap trick worth knowing. You can order author copies of your own paperback at printing cost — roughly £4–7 each, versus the £8–12 a reader pays — and catch things on paper your eye skips on screen. This is the read that finishes your proofread. I’d order one or two every time.
Author platform: spend nothing here to start. Free hosting, Instagram, and a free newsletter tier cover it. (One heads-up: MailerLite cut its free plan in mid-2026 to 250 subscribers; EmailOctopus is more generous now.) A custom domain is a nice-to-have, not a launch requirement.
What it actually costs: three budgets
Editing is the line that moves you between them.
| Line item | Shoestring | Smart & lean | Done properly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editing | £0 | £20 (online tool) | £900 (copyedit) |
| Cover | £0 (Canva) | £30 (premade) | £150 |
| Formatting | £0 (Reedsy) | £0 | $147 (Atticus) |
| ARC delivery | £0 | £20 | ~£80 |
| Ads | £0 | £10 | £50+ |
| Proof copies | £5 | £10 | £15 |
| Rough total | ~£5–15 | ~£90 | ~£1,250 |
Smart & lean is what I’d point most first-timers to — under £100 for a book that looks and reads professional. That’s where I started, with the honest intention of moving toward the “done properly” column as sales allow.
If you only had £100, in order
Cover first (£30), then online proofing tools plus your proof copies (£10), then a small ad test (£10) and ARC delivery (£20). That’s about £70 for a launch that looks the part — and room left for a copyedit if you want a human pass. Each pound goes to the most visible thing first.
Where not to spend (yet)
Four money pits when you’re publishing for cheap: big ad spend before the book is even out; your own ISBN when the free one does the identical job; premium formatting software for a single title; and a paid proofreader when tools plus your proof copy do the same job. None is wrong forever — they just don’t earn their cost on book one.
That’s the real shape of self-publishing on a budget. The rest of this guide takes each stage and shows you how to do the free version well — because cheap only beats expensive when the cheap version is actually good. Next up: getting your manuscript ready before anyone else reads it.