Self-publishing vs. "Assisted" Self Publishing/Vanity Press

Everybody, please bear in mind, I'm no self-publishing expert.  I'm not too educated on it, and that's fine with me because self publishing looks like a hell of a lot of work.

If you want to self publish, be prepared to do that hell of a lot of work.

Or, you can spent a lot more money for 'assisted' self publishing and have to split the profits.  Since you're fronting a lot of money, and since the majority of 'assisted' self pubs/vanity press books don't tend to sell a lot…well, I'm thinking...