best practices for adding my own tools and configuration

So, I am currently writing some scripts to gather and bulk report break-in attempts on my server. The scripts itself are working, but I am wondering where I should put my config files and the script itself. I thought about making an installer that would copy the required binaries in `/usr/local/bin` but for the configuration file I am not sure. I have had this problem in the past when I was installing for example `automysqlbackup, some program that will automate running and tidying up mysql backups. Do I create a new directory in /etc with a name of my choosing or is /var/lib` the place for additions that do not come from packages? What is the conventional place to store these configuration files? Should I keep the shell scripts and binaries and configuration files together in one place thats completely different?