So, I am once again toying with how to get an e-book together for self-publication. I know a few here have done so already. Love to hear about your experiences, tips, tricks, what worked, what store you used (Kindle, Smashwords, etc.) and so on. To be frank, I don't know much myself, just some broad ideas.
Right now, I am just experimenting with compiling my horror stories (all currently on here) into a collection. Not sure if it's really something I would publish or just a way to figure out how to do things. At the very least, my goal would be end up with an epub of them. Then I can decide if it's at all marketable. Big problem I see is artwork. I would rather not use AI for this but not sure I want to sink money into engaging an artist, either. So maybe hunt around for some royalty-free stock that works and then do some monkeying about with it in GIMP.
FYI, my current toolset is all open source. LibreOffice and GIMP running on Linux Mint. I've looked at Scribus, an open source DTP package, for doing the final assembly but it does not yet export epub and seems like it will need some time to learn. LibreOffice might just be enough, too.
So here's a thread on self-publishing. Anything related to the hows and whats of it is on topic. Plugging your book belongs in Sing Your Own Praises, though, unless you're also talking about how you put it together or marketed and sold it.