Maybe I'm exaggerating, but what I have recently found out could definitely spell success for my future if the cards are played right.
Where I live, the library system has a program to help self-published local authors get noticed by buying their books and distributing them across the state. In order to qualify for this program, your book must be of proper interest to the group it was written for (children's books about learning are fine, children's books about how to perform a colonoscopy, probably not age appropriate,) be grammatically accurate, among a few other requirements I'm pretty sure I could pass.
All I have to do is sign a few things and give them a copy of the book, which I'm ordering today. If they like it, they'll purchase enough copies to begin distribution.
Still, I'm nervous. If All These Little Things gets rejected, then it's back to shivving the eBook on social media and hoping it sells. I'm tired of living off one sale a month, knowing my book isn't reaching the audience it needs because I have no idea how to reach them with it.
This is why they tell you to get an agent, and how an author needs an agent and you're flibbed without one and just a vanity writer if you self-publish. And what do you do when you spend all your time searching for an agent and you don't even get a response? I just don't want to waste my time with speaking to agents who could honestly care less about my feel good story when all they want is women's fiction and the next apocalyptic cult teen fiction novel series.
I'm sorry I can't give you the next Fifty Shades or Twilight series. I hope to be a little better than those books if I'm being entirely honest. If it takes longer to get there, then so be it. I'm not selling out to make a profit.
Although sometimes, I really wish I could.