Readers want books to be easy to read. Which means professional editing is something to be aware of. Traditional publishing houses have folks that take care of this, and going down the indie road means DIY or paying an editor.

Very often you get what you pay for in editing, there are rare exceptions, but the mantra remains mostly true.
I do not recommend the DIY road because it often gets caught by reviews and results in returns. Which eats your royalties away in a flash.

So researching and finding a good editor is often crucial to success in the way that it's your product quality.
ironically though, it won't sell your book. Rather it only prevents returns and helps minimize the number of bad reviews you take.

To sell the book, you need a great cover.
the saying is "don't judge a book by its cover." Well guess what humans do...
You will need a professional cover to sell the book in the first place. All of the money spent in editing is gone if the book can't sell

And that sounds expensive. Well, it can be. Take the time and patience to do some research on all of these things.
If you need to DIY these things, make sure you take your time to refine them. especially the cover art.

To be blunt. Do not half-ass your cover and expect it to do well.
If you are not an artist. Do not do the cover yourself! Unless you're ok with 1 or 2 sales a month.
I can't stress that enough to aspiring authors going down the indie road.

The Copyright Office will also want you to send them a copy. This is a second and separate copy from the one you give the Library of Congress for the LCCN. Sending one for the LCCN will not count for the Copyright. They are different offices. (And yes, it's important enough to note this hassle) And you will also be required to pay a small fee for the Copyright. Small as in $45 at the time of this post for single author one work.

But the LCCN, ISBN, and Copyright are all pre-publishing steps.

And often those go unmentioned in the publishing process.
I will note: Some services like Amazon and Barnes&Noble will give you free ISBN's to use for print copies. But those ISBN's are only good for their systems and cannot be used with other publishing services.
So, depending on your marketing plan, you may want to consider just buying the ISBN's outright that you can use for everyone/everywhere.

This is starting to sound like a lot of work isn't it?

Well, that's because it is.

We are now at:
Write the book
Revise and finish the book
Pay for professional editing
Pay for cover blurb
Pay for Cover art
Pay for ISBN (if not using one publishing service)
Pay for Copyright
The LCCN is free

And I haven't even gotten to marketing yet... hehehehehehehehehe

But the point is, Self-Publishing is a viable option that does succeed and do really well when it is taken seriously. And you should! Because doing so gives your novel a chance to succeed.

Righty-o! Let's keep going shall we.

So from here: I'm going to discuss the Amazon process. because it's accessible, easy, and despite the folks who hate the giant... this is an indie author friend like no other. There is an actual reason they are king here.

Their process is simple, they use what is called Kindle Direct Publishing.
It's a three step process that is as simple to follow as it gets. So I will omit the Book details and book files pages. I will take a moment to talk about royalties

So at $12.99 the 40/60 split is $5.19 to Amazon and $7.80 to me.
Then since my share pays for the cost of printing, the $7.80 becomes $3.54 for me to keep.

That is how Amazon Royalties work for paperback and Hardcover.
The expanded distribution thing you see in the above image is something Amazon explains well enough for me to skip here.

eBook Royalties are different and depend on if you participate in the KDP Select program. So, let's dig into that next.

Now if you do choose to enroll in KDP select, the eBook format is exclusive to Amazon, but the print copies are not!
You can upload your print copies to other publishing services like Barnes&Noble and Kobo. So that's more to consider on that choice above. And is something I feel is worth noting.

Now, in terms of ordering Author copies, Amazon will only charge you the cost of printing the book and shipping (Even if you have prime, but the shipping isn't that bad)
This is actually a good benefit