It used to be that, to get your book published and in the hands of readers, you needed an agent and a publisher, each of whom would gobble up a significant portion of the profits. But the times they are a-changin', thanks to a bevy of recent online publishing resources that cater to renaissance persons who are overflowing with creativity and underflowing with cash. Here's a snapshot of the services available to starving artists.

Books: If all you want to do is send a printed version of the family cookbook to Sis, Mom, and Grandpa, you can. Blurb lets you create one-off hardbound print copies of your book--complete with dust jacket--for between $30 (for up to 40 pages) and $80 (topping out at 400 pages) each, with discounts for bulk orders. You start by downloading Blurb's free BookSmart book-design and publishing program (see Figure 1). When your tome is ready, you upload it for printing and receive your copy within a week or so. Blurb customers retain the rights to their original content, but Blurb does not currently pay royalties on books that customers offer through the Blurb Bookstore. The company says that it plans to add a royalty system later this year.

Lulu gives authors a fairer shake. This online publishing service imposes no up-front costs. In fact, if you don't need a copy of the book for yourself, you'll never pay anything to publish through Lulu. The downside of the service is that you have to do all the book-editing and layout legwork, using your own software; you then submit your manuscript in layout form as a PDF, .doc, or .rtf file. You set the cover price and the royalty rate you wish to receive, and Lulu offers the book through Amazon.com, Borders, Barnes and Noble, and its own Web site. The service's extensive tutorials guide you through the whole process.

Audio: Lulu also lets you create and sell CDs, but a better place to sell them online is at CD Baby. For a $35 setup fee, CD Baby will copy your CD, make a Web page for you, accept credit-card orders for CDs, and ship the discs to customers. CD Baby keeps $4 per CD, or 9 percent of digital download sales, and it also partners with record stores and online services such as iTunes.

Video: Video-hosting services are all the rage these days--we analyzed several in September's "Video Everywhere"--but finding one that lets you sell your audiovisual production isn't easy. Google Video is structured to allow sales, but that feature is off-limits to ordinary users while the service remains in beta testing. By the time you read this, Blip.tv will likely allow users of its service to charge for video downloads, taking a small per-transaction fee of 10 to 15 cents, as well as a single-digit percentage of your selling price.

Charging for your video will greatly reduce its viewership. One way to keep your opus free and yet still cash in is by selling ads. Blip.tv lets you arrange for post-roll advertising--video ads tacked onto the end of your video--and splits the resulting revenue with you 50-50 (the proceeds are deposited to your PayPal account). If you're getting serious about publishing your creative endeavors, revenue sources like these can help defray the costs.