How to self-publish a book without Amazon (in Australia)

If you want to know how to self-publish a book in Australia, you’ve come to the right place. I have done that, so I can tell you how. If you are here to be entertained, this might be pretty boring (though I’ve tried my best). Also, if you want to publish through Amazon, I don’t know how to do that (but you don’t need them, you can really do it all by yourself).

Get an ABN

First, if you want to sell your book/s, you’ll need to be a registered business. If you’re on you own (ie, you don’t have any employees), that’s great! You can just apply for an ABN (Australian Business Number) under your legal name as a sole trader, if you don’t already have one (an ABN, not a name. You should already have a legal name if you’re old enough to start a small business.). If you already have an ABN, you don’t need a new one. An ABN costs $99, or at least it did in 2025. 

Register your business name

Your ABN is not your business though. You have to register this separately with ASIC (https://www.asic.gov.au/) (Australian Securities & Investments Commission). Just go there and click “register a business name” and decide what you want to call your business. Note, you may want to actually check for the web domain and social media handles you want to use before doing this to make sure they are available (if you’re really fussy and want them to match up perfectly). Registering with ASIC for a 3 year period costs $102.

Set up a separate bank account

This is a legal thing. It’s pretty easy. I use Up bank for my business because it was all online. You can do your research and find what works for you. Just don’t use your personal account. Unless you want to break laws. 

Set up a spreadsheet or a physical logbook

You’ll need to keep records. I have a folder which I keep receipts and things in, but I also record all my income and expenses on a spreadsheet. I was able to find a template for one from someone on YouTube named Gillian Perkins, and it does well for me. It is already set up to do the maths for me, though I had to change the categories to suit me. That was much easier than figuring out how to make a spreadsheet that does all the maths though. I just start a new on with each new financial year. Note, if you’ve already paid for anything with your personal account (which you will have, because you will have no business money yet unless someone really likes you), just make a note of it on your spreadsheet for each transaction. 

Get a web domain

Next, or maybe even before, you’ll want to get a web domain (unless you plan to sell your books without a website, but I would recommend having one. Makes you look more profesh, just like using cool slang does). I registered my web domain with GoDaddy, which cost me $47.91 for 3 years. Different web domains cost different amounts, so that’s just a guide. With GoDaddy, you can build your website with them, or transfer the web domain to another third party, which is what I did. So far the start up cost totals $248.91.

Build your website

Then, you’ll want to build your website. The good thing is there is no rush once you’ve got your domain. It will just sit there until you’re ready. I use Squarespace, which costs $336 per year for the plan I have. I wouldn’t get a lighter plan than that though if you want to be able to use it well. You may want to consider another provider, like Wix or something. I’m not 100% happy with Squarespace, but I think for what I need, it does well enough. There are some fiddly things with it that you can ask me more about if you want. In general though, it’s pretty user friendly and well priced.

Set up a payment processor (if you haven’t already)

Before you can sell books, you need a way to do it. I use Stripe. It was easy to set up. They just take a percentage of each sale. I don’t know how much it is, because I can’t be bothered checking, but for reference, when I sold $78 worth of books once they took something like 4.75 I think. 

Don’t forget to write your book (and illustrate it)

Before you can put your book up for sale or send it to the printer, well, you’ll need to write it. And illustrate it if you’re going to. Really, I would do this before you start spending all the money. Then you’re not wasting any time getting it out there. If you don’t want to illustrate your book, get someone else to do it. You’ll have to pay them. But honestly, if you’re writing kids books, you can illustrate it yourself, even if you think you’re bad at drawing/painting/sculpting/photography/whatever medium you are thinking of using. Just try it. You might end up with something really really cool and unique. If you want to know what my process is, just ask. I don’t just get out a piece of paper and whip something up. There’s a whole bunch of planning, sketching, adjusting, and tracing and more of all of it before I get to the stage of making the final. It also doesn’t look like it did in my head. I think that’s normal. So don’t worry about it. But don’t cheat and use AI because it’s cheating and no one likes cheating. And it will also look bad. 

Buy some ISBNs

Anyways, now that you’ve got your book all written on a pages/word document and all your illustrations are done, you’ll need an ISBN. For each form of your book, you need a separate one. So if you are doing paperback, hardback, and ebook, you’ll need 3. I do paperback and ebook for all of mine, so I always need 2. Don’t bother buying just one unless you are thinking of only ever doing one format of one book. The ISBNs you buy don’t expire, and you can assign them to your books at any time. I can’t remember the cost of buying just one, but the math was strongly in favour of buying 10. That costs $143. That’s 14.30 per format of each book you write. I got them from Thorpe-Bowker, which is pretty standard.

Set up your book

If you have illustrations, scan those in. Make sure they are at least 300 dpi if you are getting your book printed, otherwise they will not come out very nicely. If you don’t know what that means or how to do it, like me, just google it or ask your tech savvy husband or friend or grandpa. Once these are scanned in you can set up the format of your book. I used InDesign (Adobe), and Illustrator (also Adobe) to create front covers and set it all up. Luckily, again, I had a tech savvy husband to do this part for me, but if you don’t, there are lots of videos on YouTube that can help you with it. There are other programs you can use as well other than Adobe. I don’t know much about them though. All the tech and design savvy people I know wouldn’t use anything else (I think). 

Don’t forget to include a copyright page in your book. This makes you look more legit, and it stops people from being able to steal your work. Well, it probably doesn’t stop them from stealing your book. But it makes it illegal for them to steal your book. Copyright in Australia is easy. Once you’ve written something down, it is copyrighted. You don’t have to apply for it or anything annoying like that. You may look at my books if you want to know what I put on my copyright page. You may also look at any other book because they all have one. 

If you want to include a barcode, you’ll have to get one as well. This can be from Thorpe-Bowker, or some other website. I put one on my first book, but not on my second because I decided it was pointless and ugly because I’m not selling my books in shops (if you want to know why, you can ask me. Basically, it’s just not cost effective for me).

Send your book to the National Library (legal deposit)

This varies by state, but in Victoria, it’s easy. You just go onto NED (National eDeposit) and click “Make and edeposit.” You must also fill in the forms. The button doesn’t do it for you. But it was pretty easy. In Victoria, uploading to NED counts as your legal deposit to both National and State libraries, and you don’t need to send a physical copy if your book is also available as an ebook. By the way, ‘legal deposit’ is just what it sounds like. You have to ‘deposit’ your book into the National Library for legal reasons. 

Start some marketing, if you haven’t already

This really should have been a few steps ago. Like step one. You want to start marketing as soon as you have a place to market. Social media, friends, etc. You definitely don’t need to be done with the book to market it. Post photos of the process to build interest. If you’re like me, that won’t work very well, but do it anyways, because it’s better than nothing. You can start a blog if you want. I’m doing it to increase my SEO (search engine optimisation) (makes it easier for people to discover my website). I mean, if this post is helping you, that’s great, but I like to be transparent. It’s also fun becuz so informal. 

You’ll probably want to design some stuff to go with your book, like a business card or some stickers or something. I have a card that is listed as “thank you cards” on my printer’s website, and stickers. Rad Stickers prints really high quality vinyl die-cut stickers if you want that (weather proof, good for cars and stuff). 

Print your books

I like printing locally and environmentally responsibly. If you don’t, then anything goes. But if you do, I recommend Sustainable Printing Co. if you are in Victoria. Check out their website if you want to know all the details. But basically, they use 100% recycled paper, vegetable based inks, and special equipment that is as friendly as they can get I think. They are in Melbourne. There are others, which may also be great, like Bambra and Print Together, but I’ve not used them so I couldn’t say. Sustainable has done a good job; they work with you to make sure it will turn out right, and if there’s a mistake, they’re willing to fix it. I also considered Black Rainbow, but they were a bit more pricey. Not sure where they are located, I thought QLD but their website seems to indicate VIC based on their phone number. Who knows. If you live outside of Victoria and are looking for sustainable printing in your state, just google it. Look for ‘100% recycled paper’ ‘soy or vegetable based inks’ and information about their water and electricity use. Ultimately, you decide what’s most important to you, and go with that. I like SPC cause they ticked a lot of the boxes. Maybe all of them. I’m not sure how many boxes there are. 

So, adding up the cost again. The thank you cards cost me $103.52 for 250, which have lasted me thus far. The stickers that I printed recently cost me $240.90 for 200, and the cost of books depends on a few things including size, page count, binding, etc. I chose perfect bound (spine) and it cost me $1144 for a 37 page book, 100 copies. That’s $11.44 per book. It is much cheaper to get books printed overseas, but I think it’s worth it cause I like polar bears. For 150 copies of a 32 page book, I paid $1485. ($9.90 per book). I guess it would be even cheaper per book to print 200 or 3 or 4 or 500, but I don’t have that much confidence. 

Once you have your quote for printing your books, start selling them

You decide how much to sell your books for. I wouldn’t recommend $1000 each, because people won’t want to pay it unless it’s really really really really good. Find out the cost of each book first. You’ll want to sell them for at least that much. But I would recommend more than that much. Because you’ll be including a thank you card, maybe a sticker, some packaging, and maybe free postage. So work out how much all of this cost, and sell your book for more than that. You’ll want some margins, preferably enough to make money instead of losing it. Your book may seem expensive, but consider it ‘bespoke’ or whatever. I don’t know if that’s the right word. Don’t forget to put the books up for pre-order. Maybe you want pre-orders to have some special feature like being signed or something. I don’t do anything different with my pre-orders. I sign all the books because why not? But you can do whatever you want. That’s the fun part. 

Shipping

Note on shipping: decide if you will only ship locally or to certain places. You’ll have to decide how much to charge for shipping. I offer international shipping but rarely get international orders for physical books (a big benefit of having ebook as an option). Within Australia, I go with free shipping, because it seems easier for people to know exactly what they’re paying rather than waiting until they are in the checkout (of course, you’ll want to factor shipping in with the cost of your books if you do this). To actually ship them, I went with rigid envelopes because my books fit in them. They are made of cardboard, so are recyclable but tough enough not to let the books get damaged. They cost me $74.95 for 100. I couldn’t find recycled ones, but maybe next time I’ll be able to. At least they are recyclable. Anyways, these are about A4 envelopes, and with the thickness and weight of the books I have printed so far, I am able to mail these as a ‘large letter’ as long as it’s just one book, which currently costs $5.55 within Australia. This was the cheapest way I could find to do it. It wouldn’t work for a big novel though, because the thickness has to be less than 20mm for a large letter and weight under 250 grams. 

So the start up cost totals…

$1147.28 including website, business name, etc., and stickers, thank you cards, and envelopes. This does NOT include Stripe payments, shipping costs, extra materials (like the art supplies used to create the books, Adobe suite, and the cost of renewing my website every year (but it does include one year of the website subscription)). It also doesn’t include the books.

Add in the books, and you’ll be looking at around 2291.28 to 2632.20 depending on your page count and number of books per print run, etc. Of course, if you have a 100 page kids book with a lot of illustrations, you can expect that to cost more. If you have no illustrations, it might be a bit cheaper. This cost is just for one book, and one year of running your business. And you can probably expect some other extra expenses. Maybe you want to pay for ads or something, I don’t know. 

I think that’s it. It’s pretty overwhelming. I sure am glad I don’t have to do the start up stuff anymore. Once you’ve done that, you can just get your books ready, sign up the ISBN, and send it to NED. 

Hopefully this is helpful to you. It will be helpful to me if I ever forget how I did it. The hard part is doing your taxes. But don’t worry, if you start your business in July, you’ll have a whole year before you have to think about that. 

Love, Jill