"Had to work hard at the parts you threw money at" Like what? Editing? We still worked hard with an editor, but we paid for it ourselves and got to pick the editor that best fit our style after going through dozens of sample edits to find the best fit. Cover design? We found our own and had to research best strategies and what cover design would represent our work best and may have spent thousands in the process of figuring that out. Self-published authors do EVERYTHING. It's hard work...