I had beyond-exciting fantasy plans for my latest novel, The Age of the Child, and first among them was that it would not be self-published.
I've self-published before. My first novel, Pretty Much True, received agent praise but no takers. As it was explained over the phone by one praising, but non-taking, agent-and by another who said essentially the same thing in a very nice email-the book was literary and I was an unknown. "So hard to market in this climate," they said. It was because of the agents' praise that I felt safe to self-publish.
I didn't try for an agent with my second novel, The Year of Dan Palace, because I'd been disillusioned about the traditional publishing business. (More on that later.) Between the disillusionment period and the completion of The Age of the Child, however, four long years had passed. I'd forgotten the turmoil and was ready to try again.
