Ed, I did exactly what you suggest for my first novel, 'The Foresight War' - an alternative WW2 story.
My usual publisher (Crowood) doesn't handle fiction so after various fruitless efforts to interest fiction publishers and agents I located a publisher who, for a fee, designed, edited and produced my book as a good-quality Print on Demand paperback (no need to buy a stock of them), put it on Amazon.com and also sells it as an e-book for downloading. I went for the deluxe service which will take around 500-550 copies sold to break even; it is possible to do it more cheaply. Once past that point I will collect a much higher percentage of the sale price than with conventional publishing. And all I have to do is market it, which reminds me: details are on my website, and you can read the first chapter for free!
Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum