A Major Decision

I entered the writer's world about ten years ago. At that time electronic publishing and submitting had newly emerged. A million (or so it seemed) publishers burst on the scene, clearly distinguishing themselves from self publication, AKA, "vanity presses." The idea being that anyone could get published, and that the talented couldn't "make it" doing it. There were some exceptions (like the young man who self published Aragon), but the general feeling remained..." good" writers just didn't self publish. So I never did it, opting for the electronic choice.
For me electronic publishers were fabulous. As anyone knows who has submitted shorts and novels, there are only a few big name publishers that will allow submission without an agent, and a good one is hard to get if you are unknown. So I published several novels with various small to medium sized electronic publishers. These experiences were great for the most part. I made some money, but not much.
More important was what I learned. I have a wonderful sister who edits beautifully, but I truly believe every author needs other external feedback that is not a friend or family member. I got that in spades. I now tailor my writing to current venue standards. I know my personal writer's overused words and punctuation mistakes. I understand how publishing works. So many other things. Over the last ten years the electronic market has boomed and evolved. There are even more of them, and they now want a marketing plan when you submit a book. This is good and I do have one.
Then I discovered something. If you self publish on Amazon you can do the same marketing, more or less, that a small to medium house does, AND Amazon pays more royalties. So...I'm going to try it. With new books I will still submit to the few large publishing houses that will let me. I will also continue to submit shorts to "real" publishers so I can continue to receive external feedback.
Would I suggest it to everyone? Not to someone just starting out. There is real value in having external editors edit your work. I'm grateful for that, and also that I never had to pay for all of that advice. But...if you've already been there, done that, check out Amazon. My husband and I are both going to do it. We'll keep you posted...