It's a trade off. Publishers can give you marketing, proof-reading, cover design, book layout, etc. But you get paid much more per book if you self-publish and

It's a trade off. Publishers can give you marketing, proof-reading, cover design, book layout, etc. But you get paid much more per book if you self-publish and you have more control over the final product, price, marketing strategy, etc. It's relatively straightforward to get freelance proof-reading and cover design. You could use something like LaTeX to layout the book and if the market you are targeting is relatively niche then you can market it at least as effectively as a publisher, by using a blog / website. How much hassle do you want? How much money do you want? Is there a publisher who wants to publish your book? Do you have a ready made market? I've self-published a book on a niche topic. I used Lightning Source, a print on demand company. They expect you to give them everything print-ready. Some print on demand companies like CreateSpace will hold your hand a bit more. Personally, I enjoyed learning all the things that were needed to get my book into print. It's also nice to make much more per book (~70% or the cover price rather than ~10%).