Writing

And so far I've sold about 50 books and 10 Kindle editions online and about 50 at book signings and readings. The biggest drawback to self-publishing is that you can't get reviewed in regular channels and so you must rely on really good word-of-mouth, a website or blog to promote it, and intense social networking to help build sales. I decided to self-publish after my big-time agent decided that I needed to be a romance novelist and would submit my (non-romance) to publishers of romance. While the editors comments were positive, obviously my work always ended up needing 'more work' to make them more romantic. Agents are no longer the gatekeepers to publishing. Big publishers are accepting fewer and fewer books, so even with an agent your chances are less than they were up to 9/11/2001 (when they became so paranoid they stopped opening submissions even from known agents).