"Hi, I'm wondering if anybody has experience self-publishing with Kindle Direct. Did you have trouble with book covers? Page numbers? Index?"

My major expense was engaging a substantive editor, so having the technical ability I created an epub, ebook front cover, a print version pdf, and a print version full cover (front and back PDF/A for printing). These I submitted to KDP and were accepted without any error corrections. KDP has extensive instructions to make known what they will accept. In addition to following their image size and ppi guidelines, I had created a well-formed epub, and a strict PDF/A format pdf for printing.

Some of KDPs instructions are for formatting in MS Word, which I ignored. First, on my Mac I use NeoOffice (wanting nothing to do with MS Word). Second, in creating an epub file myself, that is what I submitted instead of relying on their conversion from a Word file. And third, I knew what was expected in the print pdfs, which I generated from NeoOffice.

The only issue I had was that KDP takes an additional sizable chunk of change (% of retail price they keep) for expanded distribution. So I have also published my book with IngramSpark to facilitate expanded distribution.

A difficulty some have with IngramSpark is that they offer very little help, so one should know what they are doing before attempting to publish through IngramSpark. It is not as difficult as one might imagine though. The epub, epub cover, and print version pdf files are the same as what one successfully submits to KDP. Only the print version full cover pdf file differs, and that is in width because KDP and IngramSpark use different paper thicknesses. At least I found such to be the case for full color printing, which I used because of the illustrations included in my book.

Hope this helps :-)

PS: If you have any detailed difficulties you need help with, you can message me or contact me through the web form on my site: https://lgcullens.com/info
I don't want to disclose my email address in this public area ;-)

Thanks loads, L.G. for taking the time to spell all that out. It's really helpful.