Everyone on this thread should be reading
Kristine Kathryn Rusch on publishing. Lots of wisdom there about both ebooks and traditional publishing.
You might also check out a
recent post by award-winning Book View Cafe writer Linda Nagata on why she didn't use traditional publishing for her latest book.
As for the difficulty of getting ebooks into brick and mortar stores, Dean Wesley Smith has come up with an interesting solution:
book cards.