The documentation doesn't suggest this, but I'll give it a swing. :-)

--edit

This did appear to fix the problem. What's the best way to suggest that the documentation get fixed?

--edit1 So I've only half-fixed it: It's attempting to index my stuff, but it appears to fail:

 eellis@cpan:~$ cpansite --site /var/www/cpan --stand-alone --mode=DEB
+UG --no-lazy index
trace: cpansite version 1.11
trace: copy /var/www/cpan/global/01mailrc.txt.gz to /var/www/cpan/auth
+ors/01mailrc.txt.gz
trace: copy /var/www/cpan/global/03modlist.data.gz to /var/www/cpan/mo
+dules/03modlist.data.gz
trace: creating inventory from /var/www/cpan/authors/id
trace: inspecting archive /var/www/cpan/authors/id/J/JE/JELLISII/MODUL
+E.tar.gz
trace: creating package details in /var/www/cpan/modules/02packages.de
+tails.tmp.gz
info: produced list of 0 packages full
trace: backup old details file to /var/www/cpan/modules/02packages.det
+ails.txt.gz.bak
trace: copy /var/www/cpan/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz to /var/ww
+w/cpan/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz.bak
trace: promoting /var/www/cpan/modules/02packages.details.tmp.gz to cu
+rrent
trace: updating checksums
trace: summing /var/www/cpan/authors/id/J/JE/JELLISII
[download]

It says it's inspecting, but gives no indication that there's a problem until it says "Produced list of 0 packages full". I'm unclear as to what I need to do from here. I've been using ExtUtils::ModuleMaker to build out the basic framework of the module I'm packaging, and I do have a version number baked in.

-- edit 2

I'm a moron: was was archiving the wrong folder. Works great now.