Self-Publishing/Self-Punishment?

I'm not an expert. This is my personal experience to date. Glean from it what you can. I decided to self-publish for a few different reasons, but the following is what drove it home:

My first chapter begins with a dream sequence. It's very brief (one short paragraph) and brutal, and, I believe, very effective. The protagonist's disturbing dream visions are thematic throughout the book, and I mention that fact in the blurb on the back cover, so I believe the reader will be prepared for the opening dream. But, evidently, editors immediately relegate manuscripts with opening dream sequences to the slush pile!(!) Who knew?

I communicated with a person from a fantasy writers' advice site that I found via a link from Twitter, and this is what he said:

Ed,

Unfortunately, the many bad writers out there ruin it for the rest of us.
The "open with a dream" thing gets *mis*used so much, it becomes a red flag
for editors even when it's used appropriately, even if it's in an original
way.  Frustrating, but it's hard to blame the editors, who wade through the
same old crap time and time again every day.

-- Sam.

And this was my response:
Hi Sam,
It is unfortunate and frustrating, however I don't have any trouble blaming those editors who fall into that burned out mode. Perhaps, for them, it's time for a career change. They remind me of burned out teachers who have lost patience with unruly children and begin punishing them unreasonably instead of finding creative ways to control their classroom.
Ed

So, I chose to self-publish.

Authorhouse is one of the well-known POD companys, though they are more expensive than Create Space, for instance. They offered a deal back in September: the standard package for $399.00 instead of $599.00, so I went for it, aware of, but not focused on, the percentage of dismal failure or the enormity of the effort and luck required to promote one's own work successfully. Once I confronted the reality of it, I resigned myself to setting realistic goals. Currently, my goal is to recoup my investment. Statistically, a self-published book sells between 0-1000 copies during its lifetime, and the determining factor is the author's energy, enthusiasm, luck, charisma, connections, and social networking savvy, more than the content of his work.

Looking back, I'd recommend researching and comparing a handful of POD companies, including Create Space, Lulu, and a few others. Ask a lot of questions, especially regarding the production costs, because 99% of your sales will be hands on to end users, and your warehouse will be your closet or garage. Many of the additional services offered by POD companies are worthless.Be discriminating.

Stay away from Vanity Presses.

If you have the time, fortitude, and believe your novel is commercially valuable, try the traditional route first, but the industry is suffering the throes of change. It's very challenging even for published authors these days. Writers with no name recognition will experience a major uphill battle.

Research uploading your ms. to Amazon's Kindle as an ebook.  It's free if you're tech savvy and can do it yourself. You can charge only $2.99 for it and keep 70%. Not a bad deal.

My book will be available in another week or two. I will announce it here and on Twitter. Will create a Facebook Author's page soon, too.

Good luck. Keep writing. Things can only improve.