I self published. It's not perfect; there still exist two or three typos I caught after having edited it six times. I made a style choice on the paperback that people probably presume is padding (Kindle publishing has you format double spaced. I didn't change it when I sent to Create Space for paperbacks. I got the first proof and went, oh shit, I'd better fix that. But I was showing it off because MY FIRST PROOF YOU GUYS and had several people, including my aunt with MS who can't really read books anymore because her eye muscles jump around or won't focus, I'm not sure, said, "wow ...it's so much easier to read like this!" So I left it double spaced.
I also did the cover, and am not a graphic artist but I got a photo of two torcs (which are appropriate to the story) from the guy who makes the jewelry for the show Vikings (I follow him on Facebook and figured it couldn't hurt to ask and he said yes!), and I love it.
In short, it was entirely a one man show and I am still so super proud because it's the best thing I've ever done in the world.
Of course, not a lot of people buy it, but for like the first year I checked those stats almost every day and every time someone borrowed it from the Kindle Unlimited library, I could tell it was one person who read it in a day and I would get a thrill, because THAT MEANS THEY LIKED IT (KU borrows show up as page counts, so it would be zero, zero, zero, 421, zero, zero... ).
You don't get that in a report from a publisher, hey?