When I started making enquiries into getting my book published I was confronted with two options. One was forget it, unless your name is Stephen King etc.
The other was pay a small fortune (everything is relative) to have your book published but you will have to do all the promotional work coz we are too busy promoting 'known' authors.
'Right' I said to myself. We go down the path of self publishing. It has been an interesting journey. I found a print on demand company who will only print my books as people order them. Great concept, except for the fact that I have to charge more than I am comfortable with just to cover the costs of postage. So I am going the e-book route as a low cost alternative.
Now, there are some who will say you're not a 'genuine' author until you have someone else prepared to pick up the risk of publishing your book but to them I say phooey. Look at the story of the young man who wrote the now popular Eragon (forget his name just for the moment, but that's okay, he's never even heard of me)
He self published originally and went to schools personally promoting his book. One group of students he spoke to include the son of a publisher who picked up the book which has gone on to sell millions.
Oh yes, the other thing I discovered was that most of the pay through the nose houses only throw the author, you know, the one who wrote the thing in the first place then have to go door knocking to sell the jolly thing,a mere pittance for each copy sold.