I don't know the particulars on Tarone's deal, as far as mine, I'm part of a literary consortium that funded it. So in a way it was self published but with other people's money. A true self publisher can do anything he or she wants, I have to submit my work to a group of editors who are currently busting my baseballs on a new project. My distribution was not national at all but on the east coast. However, those editors have contacts that gladly pass my work on to national concerns in hopes that they bite on one of my efforts. If they do, I'm national. If they don't, I'm still writing but getting my baseballs busted which makes me hopefully a better writer. Stephen King's first book was self published. Then it was passed on and the floodgates opened. I have no expectations of that happening but I can hope. Either way, my work is out there and if I stay at the few thousand I sold or sell millions, (which is unlikely) I'm getting my stories out there. And that for me is the true joy in this. I started writing because I refused to take the pain killers I was prescribed after my auto accident. The fact that it turned into a finished product and sold a few copies was icing on the cake. If there's more, great. If not, I'm still cranking out a few more. If they stink, they stink. If they sell, they sell. But I'm writing to ward off those spasms. Like Nancy Reagan used to say, "Just Say No".
Yonkstur
P.S. There are no indelicate questions except for of course the famous, "boxers or briefs".