How to publish a book for free in 2026: 10 free platforms compared, and what "free" hides

What "free" means at a publishing platform

A free platform charges nothing to create an account, upload a manuscript, convert it, list it for sale and — in most cases — assign an identifier. It earns a share of each sale: typically 30% at the big retailers (you keep 70%), more below certain prices, and 10–30% of net at the flat-rate platforms. That is a fair trade, and it is how Amazon, Apple and Kobo work. The table shows where each platform draws the line.

What is free, and what is not, at each platform (as of 23 August 2026)

From each platform’s own pages, fetched 23 August 2026 and linked in Sources. Draft2Digital is omitted from the free list because new accounts pay a $20 activation fee and $12/yr below $100 in sales since May 2026.

The ten free publishing platforms

Amazon KDP

Free to publish ebooks, paperbacks and hardcovers, with no card required. You keep 70% of the list price inside Amazon’s band (£1.77–£12.99 in the UK since 7 July 2026; $2.99–$12.99 in the US) minus a small delivery fee, and 35% outside it. The free print ISBN works on KDP only and shows "Independently published". Payment is about 60 days after the month of sale, with no minimum by bank transfer. The one thing to decide: KDP Select, which is free but asks for ebook exclusivity for 90 days at a time.

Kobo Writing Life

Free, and it converts Word, ODT, EPUB or MOBI files at no charge. You keep 70% of list at £1.99 / $2.99 and above, with no upper cap and no delivery fees (45% below the threshold). Payment 45 days after the month, once you reach CAD $50. It reaches Kobo’s stores in 190-plus countries and partner retailers in Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands — but those partners need a real ISBN, so the free route is Kobo’s store only.

Apple Books

Free, with the cleanest deal: 70% at any price, no delivery fees, no price band, unlimited free books. You need an EPUB (Pages and Word export one), an Apple Account with two-factor authentication, and the patience for tax and banking forms; there is no free ISBN and no print. Payment monthly, within 45 days of the first Friday, from a US$40 default minimum.

Google Play Books

Free, 70% of list in 64 countries with no price band, and the lowest payout threshold of any platform — $1 by bank transfer, monthly on the 15th. Two limits: it accepts only EPUB or PDF (no Word conversion), and in eleven Asian markets the default split is 52%. It assigns a free identifier (GGKEY) if you have no ISBN. A free auto-narrated audiobook beta can turn the EPUB into an audiobook at no charge.

Barnes & Noble Press

Free for ebooks and print, 70% on ebooks from $0.99 with no delivery fees, and the fastest payout here — 30 days after the month, from $25. A free print ISBN is B&N-only. The reach is bn.com and NOOK, print books are not placed in the physical stores, and since April 2026 new print listings must be priced at $14.99 or more. Sign-up is open from 12 countries.

PublishDrive — the free plan

Since 24 February 2026 PublishDrive’s free plan covers one ebook distributed to three stores — Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Kobo — with 0% commission, so you receive each store’s full rate. More books or more stores (Amazon, Google Play, libraries) need a paid plan from $13.99 a month billed annually. It is the only way on this page to reach three of the big retailers from one free upload; the trade-off is the title limit and no ISBN.

IngramSpark — free for print

Title setup has been free since 2023 and revisions have been free since 1 February 2026, which makes IngramSpark the free route to a paperback that bookshops and libraries can order through Ingram’s catalogue. What is not free: the ISBN (a free one registers the imprint as "Indy Pub"; your own costs £93 from Nielsen in the UK or $125 from Bowker in the US), a 1.875% fee on distributed sales, and the print cost and wholesale discount that come off each copy. Ebook conversion is a paid extra ($0.60 a page), so bring an EPUB.

Lulu

Free to publish and sell on Lulu’s own store, where you keep 90% of the profit on ebooks and 80% on print; a one-off $4.99 (£4.99) puts a title into Amazon and Ingram distribution, where the channels take their cut first. Free ISBNs make Lulu.com the publisher of record. Monthly PayPal payouts from $5. Strongest if you will sell from your own website through Lulu Direct.

Kotobee Books

Free, and it advertises 100% royalties — which works because buyers pay directly into your own Stripe or PayPal account and Kotobee never touches the money (the rate is described as "for a limited time"). Books sell in Kotobee’s own store and reader app only, in US dollars, with a cap of 30 ebooks per account and no print or distribution. Good for interactive ebooks and authors who bring their own audience.

Ebokio Publishing — ours

Free to publish up to thirty ebooks, no card, non-exclusive, ISBN optional. You upload a DOCX or EPUB, a person reviews it (four to six working days on the Free plan), and it goes on sale as a product page in the Ebokio bookshop at ebokio.com. You keep 70% of net receipts — the price minus the reader’s VAT (0% in the UK) and the card fee, with no delivery fees — at any price; the optional plans raise that to 80% (£13.99 a month) and 90% (£19.99). Paid in pounds at the end of the month two months after the sale, from £30. It sells in the Ebokio bookshop only, so it pairs with the retailers above rather than replacing them. How it works.

Draft2Digital is no longer free for new accounts For a decade the standard advice was "go wide for free with Draft2Digital". On 14 April 2026 it announced its first direct fees: a one-time $20 activation fee for new accounts and, from 14 May 2026, $12 a year for accounts earning under $100 in sales (not charged if nothing is in distribution; the homepage says year one is waived, the FAQ does not). It is still excellent value — about 60% of list across many stores plus library reach, free ISBNs, free conversion — but it is not £0 to start, so it is in the companies guide rather than here.

What free never covers — and how to get close for nothing

No platform edits your book or designs your cover for free, and those two things are the difference between a book that sells and a book that exists. The professional versions cost money — editing at roughly 1–5 US cents a word per pass at 2025 freelance rates, a cover at $625–$1,250 for most projects — and the how to self-publish a book guide explains when they are worth it. If the budget is genuinely zero, this is the order of operations.

1. Beta readers instead of an editor. Three to five readers of your genre, a list of questions (where did you skim, where were you confused, what would you cut), and a revision that fixes what two or more of them agree on.

2. Read it aloud, or have it read to you. A text-to-speech voice exposes clumsy sentences and repetition a silent read misses. Free on every phone.

3. A free proofreading tool, last. Grammar and spelling checkers are good at typos and bad at judgement; run one after the structural work, not before.

4. A template cover that matches the genre. Study the top twenty covers in your category and copy their visual language; use a free design tool or an AI cover tool with a commercial licence, and test the result at 100 pixels tall.

5. Free formatting. Clean heading styles in Word, export to EPUB with a free tool, and check the file on a phone and a desktop reader. The EPUB vs DOCX guide says which to upload where.

6. Skip the ISBN for the ebook. Every platform here assigns its own identifier. Buy one only for print you want in shops.

Free ISBN or your own?

Most of the platforms above will give you an ISBN for a print edition at no charge. The catch is ownership: the free number is registered to the platform, which becomes the publisher of record in the trade databases, and it cannot travel with the book to another printer. For an ebook it does not matter — you do not need an ISBN at all. For a paperback you want bookshops and libraries to order, or if you want your own imprint name on the record, buy your own: £93 for one or £174 for ten from Nielsen in the UK, $125 or $295 for ten from Bowker in the US. The ISBN guide has the edge cases, and the UK guide explains why an ISBN also unlocks library-lending payments in Britain.

"Free publishing companies" that are not

Search for free publishing companies and you will meet a second kind of business: one that advertises free publishing and then sells packages — editing, design, "distribution", marketing — for hundreds or thousands, often while registering the ISBN in its own name and writing rights into the contract. Some are honest service companies with a free entry tier; some are vanity presses. The difference is where the money comes from: a platform earns when your book sells, a vanity press earns when you buy. The companies guide has the full red-flag checklist; the short version is that a free publisher never needs your card, never owns your files, and never promises bookshop placement.

How to publish a book for free, step by step

1. Finish and self-edit the manuscript, then run the beta-reader pass above. Do not upload a first draft; every platform lets you replace the file later, but reviews do not get replaced.

2. Make the cover with a template or AI tool, matching your genre at thumbnail size.

3. Format the file: real heading styles, a generated table of contents, images kept small; export an EPUB (or keep a clean DOCX for platforms that convert).

4. Write the metadata: title, subtitle, a 150-word blurb, the most specific categories that fit, seven search-phrase keywords, and a pen name you will keep.

5. Pick the platforms: KDP for Amazon; Kobo, Apple and Google directly (or PublishDrive’s free plan for three of them); Ebokio or Kotobee for a higher-royalty storefront; IngramSpark or Lulu if you want print. Decide on KDP Select knowingly, or skip it.

6. Upload, preview, submit, then check the live listing on a phone. Request reviews from your beta readers in launch week, and start the next book.