Everyone knows that publishing is cheap these days. Technology has afforded us a wonderful advantage. Books can be created electronically without all the trappings of dead trees, and paper, and ink and a printing press. Once, long ago, the printing press revolutionized the world. That day has come and gone. A new day is here.

What is that new day? Printing and publishing can be done by anyone, anywhere with use of a personal PC and the internet. That is all it takes, and it is virtually free. But is it really free?

Well, while it is true that anyone can type up a story or novel on a word processor and immediately post it to the internet or run it through a publishing venue like Lulu or CreateSpace for free, what you generally get with that method is a product worth what it cost to make--Nothing. There is an old adage that says, "You get what you pay for," and in this case, it holds true.

That is not to say that the cost of publishing hasn't reduced significantly. It has. But producing a quality product is never free. There are costs to self-publishing, just like there are costs to traditional publishing, and it pays to know ahead of time what you'll be paying for. To that end, I've produced a list on my website of common costs of self-publishing and each one's average expense.