All the things you list, marketing, formatting, etc, you would have to pay yourself out of pocket if you couldn't do it yourself. I hired a designer for my book

All the things you list, marketing, formatting, etc, you would have to pay yourself out of pocket if you couldn't do it yourself. I hired a designer for my book and it cost me roughly $1500. I haven't paid for marketing yet but at least if I released the book myself, I would have that option, and it would be worth it to me because I would be taking in the bulk of the income instead of a publisher. The saddest part about this article is that his publisher seemingly did NOTHING to promote his book. That would be the main reason I would go with a publisher at all.