Not vouching for him, but Aaron Shepard, a children's author, maintains you can self-publish efficiently and profitably these days.
"In fact, by aiming at Amazon, I was able to sell close to 30% the number of copies sold by one of those nationally-distributed competitors including its bookstore sales. And because the profit from my publishing system is so high -- generally half or more of the cover price -- I was earning about twice as much in total as that author would make with a normal royalty."[0]
He has a site on the subject[1], which looks like it was designed by me (it wasn't - I don't know him).
"In fact, by aiming at Amazon, I was able to sell close to 30% the number of copies sold by one of those nationally-distributed competitors including its bookstore sales. And because the profit from my publishing system is so high -- generally half or more of the cover price -- I was earning about twice as much in total as that author would make with a normal royalty."[0]
He has a site on the subject[1], which looks like it was designed by me (it wasn't - I don't know him).
[0] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aiming-Amazon-Publishing-Marketing-A...
[1] http://www.newselfpublishing.com/