I have been working for the past year or so on hosting all of my content entirely independently in a cost-effective manner. If you publish anything independently this may be of use to you.
For my web-page I use Carrd Pro Plus ($49/Year) you can create one entirely from scratch too, but it's a lot more work. ( https://carrd.co/pro )
For my digital book distribution, I use Flip PDF Pro Plus. It's the only software that creates the kind of flip books I need that isn't subscription-based and doesn't have usage caps. It costs $399 once. ( https://www.flipbuilder.com/flip-pdf-pro/ )
For selling print copies, I use Mixam Print on Demand Links, which is free but requires a bit of technical know-how to set up correctly. (Use appropriate margins, CMYK color, 600 DPI) ( https://mixam.com/support/printlink-introduction )
For any custom code beyond the scope of Carrd I use Github Repos and embed via an iFrame. ( https://github.com/ )
For any merchandise, I create products in Stripe and embed links to them as buttons on Carrd. ( https://stripe.com/payments/payment-links )
The point is, you do not need Amazon or a publisher. Amazon and most publishers do not promote your content and suck up most of your profit. (Amazon takes a 70% cut of profit on book sales, this is ridiculous for a company that does not advertise for you.)
Sci-fi | Bio-horror | Anti-Western | Psychological Thriller Comics, Videos and Lore. We specialize in hard sci-fi and post-ironic satire, telling stories of meat, minds, and mettle trying to claw meaning from a cosmos where humanity mutates, mimics gods, and dies trying to understand the punchline.
If your work is accepted, I'll handle everything except the domain purchase at no cost (as it costs me nothing to do) and add you to my webring. This is part of my 501(c)3 The Church of Prosperity's Metalism program which helps creatives establish themselves independently. ( https://churchofprosperity.net/ )
If you have any suggestions for how to improve any of the above, let me know.
universe26
