Advice to Prospective Book Authors (2003)

Much much more so. Amazon KDP for print is extremely simple with zero cost, and Lightning Source is also quite low cost and simple enough to figure out. They handle printing and distribution. You just need writing, design, manuscript assembly, marketing

(Last one is hardest, as in all things)

No fixed costs other than a nominal per book annual fee at lightning. Otherwise, you only pay print costs when a book is ordered so it is impossible to lose money.

It is pretty easy. For technical books, assuming you write something people are looking for (and you can write), I guess the readers can find you, at least some of the time. I haven't written that kind of book so I'll defer to people who have.

Or by "viable" did you mean "getting people to know about your book and buy it" ?

That's a bit harder. You can hire a publicist (through Reedsy, for example) and for a few thousand you can get interviews with podcasts, magazines, and radio stations. You won't be on NPR, though. A traditional publisher can really push your book through the doors to book stores and the book reviewers of the world.

It's still a lottery -- there are zillions of books being published and a lot of people just plain don't read.

It depends on your goal.

If you want to get your book out to as many eyes as possible, yes, absolutely.

If you want to make lots of money from your book, nothing guarantees that.

Yep, I’ve self published multiple books now and it’s super easy, no costs at all and ongoing I do absolutely nothing and they sell.