[zebraflask]

The $10,000 number is a little too high.

I'd say it's easy to start spending and keep spending the bucks if you're aiming to duplicate a conventional print run from a large press, with no expense spared, but it isn't necessary.

Sites like Canva will take care of cover art, and print on demand presses like Blurb let you start with a very reasonably priced short run and will hook you up with a variety of distribution networks.

You can quite literally publish a professionally packaged book for a few hundred dollars or less.

There's also Amazon, but I've never tried it so can't comment on it.