I also meditate on self publishing because of various reasons...
#1 - The story stays as it is and I don't have to convert it to a trendy mainstream cliche (i.e.: I don't have to add a chainsaw to my angel's hand because that would be trendy and I don't have to turn her to a cliche, big breasted, ugly botox chick as some "professional" wanted to change her already in the past, because they believe artificially patched woman are much more desirable, lovable and beautiful, but foremost, a product will be better because of it. Hint; no, it won't be better.)
#2 - If something goes wrong, I can blame only myself as I can take responsibility for my own failure. Publishers are corporations and corporations are rarely, but usually never take responsibility for anything.
#3 - With self publishing not I'll be the one who will get the smallest percentage, while everyone else, from publisher through distributors, to the last agent, are going to fill their pocket from my work (As right now, the royalty is almost equal with the agent's royalty and from the listed people above none of them actually worked on anything, yet they're demanding huge percentages for the big nothing.).
#4 - I can release the work on an exact day and I don't have to wait for a year or two to see my work published in few hundred pieces.
#5 - I don't have time to play with agents and their little snobbish, "we may respond to you if we're in the mood, but as we're the gatekeepers, please, beg us." games. Well, I won't beg to anyone. I never did and I never will.
#6 - As I work on a trilogy, I don't have to listen the "You must sell X pieces or you must rewrite everything as we tell you or Vol 2 never will be published".
#7 - The marketing is all on me and I don't have to afraid that some "visionary" marketing guy who was taken into his position by mommy or daddy is going to ruin something.
#8 - I don't have to afraid that a publisher is buying the rights just to sink it in a drawer, to never release it.
#9 - I have the last word in the cover art and the illustrations. As a graphic artist (my second profession), I don't like when some "visionary" is trying to redesign something, because he feels the urge to know something better.
#10 - I keep all the rights.
It seems that it is easy enough to self publish a novel for the digital market.
I looked after it and yes, it seems easy enough. The marketing is presumably the hardest thing, but that can be solved. You must use max two-three formats (mobi, PDF, EPub) and you can distribute your work at several places (Kindle, iBookStore, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Lulu and Tesco EBooks).