With many different sources available today, pretty much anyone can become a publisher. Self publishing has become a trend among new authors. If you are unknown and new to the book selling business, most companies will not consider investing in your first time novel. While being rejected may hurt, for most, ending up an unread authors is very disheartening. Finding a publisher is difficult and competitive. Many authors give up publishing the conventional way and opt for self publishing.

It's even possible to do everything from the comfort of your own home. Everyone can pretty much do it all at home, from writing, editing, printing and even photocopying their own collected work. It is not expensive to publish.
However, keep expectations lower when choosing the do-it-yourself route because most of people who will read your photocopied manuscripts would be family and friends. It will not be a profit of thousands of dollars from this kind of work.

There are however many print-on-demand services available that offer digital printing technology that will print out professionally bound books one book at a time. If you get just one or two orders for your book, then print just two copies. This is a cost-effective way to publish books because you only print out books you can sell. Many people use print-on-demand services for private and corporate use because it's so cost effective and simple.

Commercial and academic publishers subscribe to print on demand services because they can print for advanced reading copies. This is especially helpful when wanting to test the waters and get opinions before committing to anything on a larger scale. If you still have some doubts, keep in mind the success stories that have been greatly publicized.

When Amy Fisher decided to publish her book "If I Knew Then" with the print on demand service, the book sold more than 32,000 copies. This kind of success can inspire other authors, but be warned because Amy Fisher is still unusual for individual books that print on demand.

These print-on-demand services are widely available to anyone who would like to publish their personal works. Most books printed on demand cater mostly to pocket markets by which we mean the friends and family of the author.