If you wrote a book and you decide that is great material and you would like to see it published, but you want to do this by yourself, for you to get more royalties on your work and not the big publishing houses, here are some tips that will help you achieve your goals.

1. It's not that hard to self-publish

According to CNET's editor David Carnoy, publishing an e-book its really easy. "You choose a size for your book, format your Word manuscript to fit that size, turn your Word doc into a PDF, create some cover art in Photoshop, turn that into a PDF, and upload it all to the self-publisher of your choice and get a book proof back within a couple of weeks (or sooner) if you succeeded in formatting everything correctly. You can then make changes and swap in new PDFs", says Carnoy.

You can still make changes to the content or cover after you published your book. The only inconvenient would be that some companies might charge you for this (around $25-$50), and the book will appear as "out of stock" until the changes update.

If you want to do it yourself, Lulu and CreateSpace offer some good instructions in that direction.

2. Go digital

You can go either way you want regarding your book, print it on paper or turn it into an e-book. The second version would be preferred due to the cost. David says that "you can [...] price a digital book for much less than a paperback, which makes it easier to sell (the majority of self-published print books cost $13.99 and up while the majority of indie e-books sell in the $.99-$5.99 range)".

3. Reach for quality

Not only for your content, where is important to have something as good as possible, but try to offer a quality cover as well. Think of a catchy design that will make people reach for your book just by seeing your cover. Also, you should creat a cover that will look great even at a small scale. "With Amazon becoming a dominant bookseller, your book has to stand out as a thumbnail image online because that's how most people are going to come across it. If you're primarily selling through Amazon, think small and work your way up", says Carnoy.

4. Competition

Due to the small prices that this market is offering, many indie authors turned towards e-book self-publishing. Some are quality oriented, trying to make good books for the reader public, and others only think about profit and how to gimmick the system for their gain.

5. Prepare for the worst

"The average print self-published book sells about 100-150 copies -- or two-thirds to three-quarters of your friends and family combined (and don't count on all your Facebook acquaintances buying) [...]while traditional publishers aim to publish hundreds of thousands of copies of a few books, self-publishing companies make money by publishing 100 copies of hundreds of thousands of books" says Carnoy. So, the bottom line is that you should prepare yourself for a low sell and a really small profit. Not everyone will enrich through an e-book.