How to publish and sell an ebook: a complete step-by-step guide

To sell an ebook you need three things: a file, a page that describes it, and a checkout that sends the file to the buyer automatically once they’ve paid. Everything else (an ISBN, a publisher, a distributor, an online shop) is optional, and for a first book usually unnecessary.

The minimum cost of starting like this is zero. heyhey’s Starter plan costs AED 0 forever, needs no card and takes no commission on your sales, and it holds exactly one product, which is all you need for a first ebook. Connect Stripe and PayPal, and your buyers can pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or PayPal. If you’d rather use a channel with ready-made traffic, you pay for it with a percentage: Amazon KDP keeps 30% or 65% of the price, Gumroad 10% plus USD 0.50.

Below are eight steps, each with its real cost and what you can skip.

Contents

1. Step 1: which file format?
2. Step 2: layout and cover
3. Step 3: do you need an ISBN?
4. Step 4: where to sell?
5. Step 5: what price?
6. Step 6: the sales page
7. Step 7: checkout and file delivery
8. Step 8: your first sale
9. What does it all cost?
10. Frequently asked questions
11. Methodology
12. List your first ebook for AED 0

Step 1: which file format?

For a first book sold from your own site, PDF is enough. It looks the same for everyone, doesn’t break tables and graphics, and opens anywhere. If you write prose or long continuous text, add EPUB, because readers with e-readers will want it.

If you don’t want to do the conversion yourself, conversion services and freelance designers will prepare EPUB and the other formats for a fee.

Step 2: layout and cover

You can do the layout yourself in the editor you already use. Exporting to PDF is enough, as long as you get the margins right, keep your headings consistent and make sure the table of contents has working links.

The cover matters more than you’d think, because when you sell online it’s the only thing the buyer sees before reading anything. You can make it in a free design tool or hire a designer, and the same goes for proofreading: do it yourself or pay a proofreader.

There’s no single right answer here. For a first, low-priced ebook, a cover you made yourself with care is fine. For a product at AED 200, hiring a designer starts to pay off.

Step 3: do you need an ISBN?

To sell from your own site: no. An ISBN is a number that identifies a publication in the book trade. ISBNs are issued by the national ISBN agency in your country; you only need one if you sell through bookstores or platforms that require it.

Check with the specific channel, because requirements differ. Some bookstores and distributors expect the author to bring their own ISBN before the book can be listed. When you sell directly (your own site, your own checkout), nobody will ask you for one.

This is the part of the process that most often holds people up for weeks. If you sell on your own, just skip it.

Step 4: where to sell?

There are three types of channel, and they differ in one thing: who brings you the buyer.

Your own checkout. You keep almost everything, but the traffic has to be yours. On heyhey Starter there’s no subscription and 0% commission, so from an ebook priced at AED 89 you keep AED 89 minus the payment provider’s fee. The buyer’s email address stays with you too.

Marketplaces. Amazon brings its own traffic. Amazon KDP pays a 35% or 70% royalty, with 70% only for prices between USD 2.99 and USD 12.99, and after deducting the cost of delivering the file. The buyer, though, is the platform’s customer, not yours.

Distributors. They place your ebook in bookstores, libraries and reading subscriptions. Their models differ: some distribute for free and earn on extra services, others pay per book read in a subscription. Not all of them publish their rates for authors, so ask before you sign.

Step 5: what price?

There’s no single right price and no reliable average to copy. What you can say is that guides and educational products sold directly are often priced higher than fiction in a bookstore, because they compete with a course, not with a novel.

If you sell from your own checkout, the price is entirely yours: there’s no distributor setting a discount and no range imposed by a royalty rate. The exception is Amazon KDP, where the 70% royalty only applies between USD 2.99 and USD 12.99, which in practice sets your price for you.

Pricing methods, sales models and the most common mistakes: how to price an ebook.

Step 6: the sales page

For a single PDF you don’t need an online shop with a basket and stock management. You need one page that answers four questions: what it’s about, who it’s for, what exactly the buyer gets, and how much it costs.

Plus a button that goes straight to payment. The fewer steps between “I want this” and “I’ve paid”, the better: every extra click loses someone.

In heyhey the page builder is included in every plan, including the free Starter plan, which holds three pages. That’s enough for a sales page, a thank-you page and a newsletter sign-up page.

Step 7: checkout and file delivery

This is the one step that really isn’t worth doing by hand.

Selling by bank transfer and email is tempting because it costs nothing. It ends with you checking your account at ten on a Sunday evening and sending files, and there’s always someone who writes that they never got theirs. Automatic delivery once the payment goes through takes that whole category of problems off your plate.

Three things to check in the checkout before you choose a tool:

Whether buyers can pay the way they’re used to. Online, people expect to pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, and some prefer PayPal. Check the tool’s official list of payment methods, not just its marketing page.

Whether access switches on by itself. No emails from you and no sending links by hand.

Whether the contact lands on your list. An ebook buyer is the best possible audience for your next product. If the platform has no email marketing, you have to move that contact somewhere else.

In heyhey the checkout takes cards (Visa, Mastercard), Apple Pay and Google Pay through Stripe, plus PayPal; access to the product switches on automatically once the payment goes through; and email marketing (sequences, tags and automations) is included in every plan, including the free one.

Step 8: your first sale

This is where the technical part ends and the harder part begins.

For creators of digital products, the channel you control best is an email list: people who already know you and chose to hear from you.

If you don’t have a list yet, the simplest starting version looks like this: give away a chapter of the ebook in exchange for an email address, set up a sequence of a few emails that builds on that chapter, and offer the full book at the end. You can do all of it in the same tool you sell with, as long as it includes email marketing.

Don’t count on a marketplace doing this for you. On Amazon you compete with thousands of titles, and without your own promotion your visibility is close to zero.

What does it all cost?

heyhey prices excl. VAT. Third-party rates checked on 18 August 2026.

The first column isn’t a rhetorical trick. For a first ebook you really can get to a sale without spending a single dirham, and everything in the second column is optional: you can pay for it later, out of your sales.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to publish an ebook?

When you sell from your own site, the minimum is zero: you export the PDF from your editor, make the cover in a free design tool, and heyhey Starter costs AED 0 forever, needs no card and takes no commission on sales. If you pay for help, the cost depends on what you buy: file conversion, a cover design and proofreading are the usual extras. An ISBN, a publisher and a distributor are optional for a first book you sell yourself.

Do I need an ISBN to sell an ebook?

Not to sell from your own site. An ISBN identifies a publication in the book trade. ISBNs are issued by the national ISBN agency in your country; you only need one if you sell through bookstores or platforms that require it, and requirements differ between channels. If you sell directly through your own checkout, nobody will ask you for one. It’s one of the steps that most often holds people up for weeks for no real reason.

What format should I publish my ebook in?

For direct sales, PDF is enough: it looks the same for everyone, doesn’t break tables and graphics, and opens on any device. Add EPUB if you write long continuous text or go into bookstores and distribution, because readers with e-readers will expect it. You only need MOBI or KPF when you sell through Amazon KDP.

How do I deliver an ebook to the buyer automatically?

You need a platform that releases the file by itself once the payment goes through, without you and without sending links by hand. In heyhey this happens on every plan, including the free Starter plan, and the checkout takes cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay through Stripe, plus PayPal. Selling by hand with a bank transfer and email looks free, but it costs you time at odd hours and brings complaints from people who say they never got the file.

How much can you earn from an ebook?

It depends on the price, the channel and, above all, on how many people hear about it. Selling from your own checkout with no commission, an ebook at AED 89 brings you AED 89 minus the payment provider’s fee; on Gumroad you keep about AED 78, and through Gumroad’s Discover marketplace about AED 62. A hundred sales a year at this price is AED 8,900 on your own checkout, before payment fees, and about AED 6,200 in the worst of these cases. The platform itself won’t find buyers: your email list or the audience you already have does that.

Is it worth sending my ebook to a publisher?

For guides and educational products sold to your own audience, usually not, because all the value lies in the direct relationship with the reader, and a publisher takes over that relationship along with part of the revenue. It makes sense for fiction and for titles meant for bookstores, libraries and reading subscriptions. These are two completely different paths, and you can combine them: publish yourself, then go into distribution later, once the title has a track record.

How long does it take to publish an ebook?

The technical part (exporting the file, the sales page, the checkout and automatic delivery) takes an afternoon if the text is ready. The optional things take longer: proofreading, the cover design, getting an ISBN and the distributor’s review, whose timing each channel sets for itself. What takes longest is building the audience you’ll offer the ebook to, and that’s the only stage no tool can shorten.

Methodology

Where the numbers come from. Amazon KDP rates from the KDP help pages, accessed 18 August 2026, including Amazon’s note “effective July 7, 2026” next to the USD 12.99 threshold. Gumroad’s fees from gumroad.com, accessed 18 August 2026; AED amounts based on USD fees are converted and rounded. heyhey’s own pricing for our plans.

What’s not in this article. Tax and accounting. That’s a separate topic where every case is different: tax rules depend on where your business is registered, so check the details with your accountant.

heyhey is our product. We write about it on our own blog and say so openly. Other companies’ prices and rates come from their own materials.

List your first ebook for AED 0

heyhey’s Starter plan costs AED 0 forever, needs no card and takes no commission on your sales. It holds one product and three pages, exactly what you need for a first book: a sales page, a checkout with cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal, and automatic delivery of the file after payment. Email marketing with sequences is included from day one. Compare the plans.

Sources:

• Amazon KDP, royalty rates and delivery costs, kdp.amazon.com, accessed 18 August 2026
• Gumroad, pricing, gumroad.com, accessed 18 August 2026
• heyhey, pricing and plan limits