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Free assessment for indie authors

Self-Publishing Readiness Assessment

Are you ready to sell direct?

Eight short questions, a 0-100 score, and three concrete next steps tuned to your specific situation. No marketing fluff — just honest math about where you stand today.

Tell us where you stand

No wrong answers. Be honest — the result is only useful if the inputs are.

Fill in the scorecard to see your readiness

We will return a 0-100 score, the band you are in, and three personalized next steps.

How the self-publishing readiness assessment works

Three short steps and you have your readiness score plus the next moves to make.

  1. 1

    Answer 8 short questions about your current setup

    Tell us how many titles you have published, the size of your active reader audience, where you currently sell, how much you invest monthly, hours you dedicate to marketing, your email list status, your annual revenue goal, and your primary publishing language. No right or wrong answers — be honest, the result is only useful if the inputs are.

  2. 2

    Get a 0-100 readiness score weighted by impact

    Each dimension contributes a different number of points to the total based on how much it predicts direct-to-consumer success. Audience size carries the most weight (25 points), followed by catalog depth, channel mix, monthly investment, email list, revenue goal, and marketing hours. The total places you in one of four tiers: 0-30, 31-55, 56-80, or 81-100.

  3. 3

    Receive three tier-matched next steps

    The assessment returns three specific actions calibrated to your score band — not generic advice. Lower-tier authors get a community-building plan around D2C as a starter channel; higher-tier authors get migration tactics to make D2C their primary revenue line.

How we score self-publishing readiness

The seven dimensions and why each one weighs what it weighs.

The total score is 100 points distributed across seven weighted dimensions. The weights are not arbitrary — they reflect how strongly each dimension predicts success when an indie author adds a direct-to-consumer channel to their existing marketplace setup. Higher-weight dimensions move the needle more.

Audience size

25 / 100

The single strongest predictor of D2C success. Engaged readers — newsletter subscribers, podcast listeners, active social followers — are the only audience that can buy from you without depending on Amazon's algorithm. Every other dimension is theoretical without this one.

High signal

5,000+ active readers → D2C can be your primary channel from day one.

Low signal

Under 100 active readers → focus on building community alongside D2C, with marketplaces driving discovery.

Catalog depth

15 / 100

Each title in your catalog makes the others more discoverable. Authors with 6+ titles get internal cross-selling momentum that single-title authors lack. Backlist also smooths revenue between launches.

High signal

16+ published titles → you have backlist revenue plus a runway for new launches.

Low signal

No titles published yet → open the D2C store first so it is live for your first launch.

Current channel mix

15 / 100

How you sell today reveals operational maturity. Authors already running hybrid setups (marketplaces plus D2C) have crossed the hardest learning curve and can iterate faster. Authors who have never sold anywhere still get points for being ready to start.

High signal

Hybrid (marketplaces + D2C) already running.

Low signal

Not selling yet — that is not a blocker, just a starting point.

Monthly investment in tools and marketing

12 / 100

Capacity to invest signals seriousness. Authors investing $200+/month in tools, design and marketing typically have a sustainable practice. The number does not have to be large, but zero spend usually correlates with treating self-publishing as a side experiment.

High signal

$500+/month committed.

Low signal

Zero spend — common for authors starting out, but the next tier requires some investment.

Email list status

12 / 100

The single most actionable owned asset. An active list with 1,000+ subscribers can convert at 1.5%+ on a launch, which is what makes D2C economics work at scale. Even a small active list beats no list.

High signal

Active list with 1,000+ subscribers — the lever that makes D2C launches profitable.

Low signal

No list — activate one this week (ConvertKit, MailerLite, Substack all have free tiers). Subscriber count comes later.

Annual revenue goal

11 / 100

Aspiration shapes channel strategy. Modest goals favor patience and single-channel focus; ambitious goals require hybrid + D2C from the start because marketplace economics alone do not scale into the higher revenue bands.

High signal

$25K+/year goal → D2C-primary is the structurally right setup.

Low signal

Under $1K/year goal → start with D2C as community-builder; revenue ambition can grow with the channel.

Weekly marketing hours

10 / 100

Time invested in non-writing activity is necessary but not sufficient. 20+ hours/week with no audience is wasted effort; 5 hours/week with the right channel mix is leverage. Lower weight reflects that time alone does not predict outcomes.

High signal

20+ hours/week of marketing time.

Low signal

Under 5 hours/week — common, but the next tier needs at least a structured weekly cadence.

A primary publishing language input is also collected, but does not contribute points. It is used to personalize the next-step copy (LatAm authors get currency and payment guidance; English authors get marketplace-mix guidance).

Tier floors

The total score maps to one of four tiers, each with its own next-move framing:

0-30

Start D2C as a community-builder

31-55

D2C + activated email list

56-80

Ready for D2C

81-100

D2C-primary

Frequently asked questions about self-publishing readiness

Quick answers to the most common questions indie authors ask before launching direct sales.

It measures how prepared you are to add a direct-to-consumer (D2C) channel to your existing publishing setup. The score is composed of seven weighted dimensions: audience size (highest weight, 25 points), catalog depth, current channel mix, monthly investment in tools and marketing, email list status, annual revenue goal, and weekly marketing hours. The total is a 0-100 score that places you in one of four readiness tiers.
There is no minimum to start. Even authors who score in the 0-30 band can and should open a D2C storefront — the assessment tells them how to use it (as a community-builder, not as the primary revenue channel). Authors in the 56-80 band are ready to make D2C a core channel; 81+ authors are ready to make it primary.
No. An active email list with 1,000+ subscribers contributes 12 of 100 points to the readiness score, but it is not a hard prerequisite. Authors with smaller lists can still open a D2C store; the assessment recommends activating the email list in parallel as the connective tissue between social channels and the storefront.
The recommendation is not "wait until you have more". The recommendation is: open D2C now as a community-builder, route your social media bios to it, treat marketplaces as a top-of-funnel discovery channel, and grow community alongside direct sales. The D2C economics improve as your audience grows; you do not need to choose one or the other.
About two minutes. There are 8 questions, each a single dropdown with realistic options (catalog depth, audience size, current channels, monthly investment, marketing hours, email list status, revenue goal, primary language). No open-ended fields, no signup required to start.
Because engaged readers are the only audience that can buy from you without depending on a marketplace algorithm. Every other dimension — catalog, investment, marketing hours, email list — is theoretical without an audience that can convert. D2C economics work when you have demand you control; the heavier weighting reflects that.
Because spending is a means, not an end. Authors who invest $500/month without a clear strategy can score lower in the dimensions that actually predict outcomes (audience, email list, channel mix). The weight is high enough to recognize seriousness but low enough to avoid rewarding spend for its own sake.
Yes. The scoring is language-agnostic — the seven weighted dimensions apply equally regardless of publishing language. The primary-language input is used to personalize the recommendations (Spanish-language authors get LatAm payment-rail guidance; English-language authors get marketplace-mix guidance).
Once per quarter is a sensible cadence for active indie authors. Audience size, catalog depth, and channel mix all shift over time, and the readiness tier should move with them. Retaking after each major milestone (new launch, audience growth jump, channel addition) is also useful.
The assessment is free, requires no signup to use, and the scoring would produce the same result regardless of which platform you choose for D2C. Publica.la appears as a recommended platform in the higher-tier next steps because the Authors early-access program is built for that segment, but the methodology and the scoring are independent of any sale.

Why an assessment beats trial-and-error for indie authors

Most indie authors make distribution decisions on vibes: a podcast inspired them to go wide, a Twitter thread sold them on D2C, a launch went badly so they retreated to KDP exclusivity. The seven dimensions in this assessment exist because each one independently predicts whether adding D2C will work — and the weights are calibrated so that a single high signal does not produce a misleading total. Score 80+ with a strong audience but no email list activation, and you will still be told to fix that gap before betting the launch on D2C. The point is not to gate you out of D2C (everyone gets a "start direct" path); the point is to compress the seven variables that actually matter into a single signal so the next move is data-shaped, not vibes-shaped.

Read the full revenue math: Amazon KDP vs Direct-to-Consumer in 2026

Related resources for indie authors

Author Royalty Calculator

Once you know your readiness tier, run the per-sale and annual revenue math across Amazon KDP, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play and direct sales.

Authors solutions overview

Everything Publica.la offers for indie authors: D2C storefront, native apps, multi-currency, multi-format catalog, streaming-grade content protection.

KDP Select vs Going Wide vs D2C — Decision Framework

A practical decision tree for picking between Amazon exclusivity, going wide across marketplaces, and adding a direct-to-consumer channel.