The Distutils Cookbook collects various useful recipes and tips for using the Distutils.
When creating new recipes, use the RecipeTemplate.
DistutilsInstallDataScattered -- make resource data-files get installed in the same directory tree as the Python files that depend on them
DistutilsAutoPackageDiscovery -- specify packages to install recursively by specifying only the top-level package
Jeremy Hylton has written a Python Package Index (PyPI) [https://python.domainunion.de/~jeremy/weblog/030924.html tutorial]. This covers the use of the distutils register command.