Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 183

An Unusual Fantasy

I think my body and brain want to be on spring break this week because concentration has been hard. I resorted to doing busy work that needed to be done but that didn't require much actual thought. We're supposed to get another drastic weather change tomorrow, and the cooler weather may spur me back into work mode.

I've learned that the audio books are doing surprisingly well, so it looks like there was a demand for them! It's cool that so many things are coming together for me at about the same time, but it does seem to be yet another case of all the time and effort that often have to be spent in order to become an "overnight" success. There are some people who hit it big right out of the gate, but most people have to put in a lot of work and be very patient before it all pays off and starts to look like success. That work and patience is the part of the iceberg below the surface of the water. The success is the only part most people get to see.

But enough about me. I have other books to talk about. Last week, I read The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, and it's a very interesting and unique fantasy novel. I love the setting among the immigrant communities in turn-of-the-century (19th into 20th) New York, and I love that it deals with some mythologies and cultures that are outside the usual realm of fantasy. Plus, it does that thing I love in books (and wish I could pull off) of having multiple storylines that converge as the story progresses. There's just something about the "oooh!" response of seeing the pattern created by all those threads weaving together that gets me every time.

One story thread in this book starts with a Polish Jew planning to emigrate to America, and since he wants a wife but is generally too much of an arrogant jerk to get one, he gets an elderly (and rather shady) mystic to make a golem for him -- a woman made of clay who will be the perfect wife and who will exist to serve him. He ships her to New York as cargo, but can't resist saying the words to wake her during the voyage, then he dies before reaching New York. She's left awakened and masterless in a strange world. Meanwhile, a Syrian tinsmith in New York is doing repairs on an antique copper jar when, much to his surprise, a jinni appears. He'd been imprisoned in the jar for centuries, and an iron cuff leaves him trapped in human form. Now he's in a strange world he doesn't understand and frustrated because he's limited by his form. The story follows them as they adapt to their new lives and learn about a threat that links them.

This is a very atmospheric book. You really feel like you're there. I've studied this period a lot, ever since I studied Jacob Riis in a journalism history class in college and became fascinated with his work. That gave me a lot of mental images to work with, but I think the book describes the setting well enough that you would get it even if you hadn't seen tons of photographs of the setting. I also liked seeing the cultures depicted. I knew more about the Eastern European Jews, but the various Syrian/Lebanese communities showed a sense of nuance. There's a general sense in popular culture that Middle Eastern=Muslim, but there was a large Christian population, including Eastern Orthodox and Maronite Catholic (there's a Lebanese Catholic church nearby that does a food festival, so I'm somewhat familiar with that). It's like an education while reading! But I also really got into the characters and felt for their plights. In a way, the fantasy elements provide a metaphor for immigration and that sense of being a stranger and having to rebuild a life. It's not really an action-packed book, though it does build toward the end. It's a really good rainy-day read when you can immerse yourself in that world.

In the Aftermath ...

I've done my usual trick of adapting to the spring time change automatically. It helps that I always seem to be singing in the first service that Sunday, so it forces me to adjust my body clock, but I got up at the usual time without setting an alarm this morning (which should have been an hour earlier to my body). If I go by my usual pattern, I'll start waking up "early" tomorrow now that I've caught up on missing sleep from getting up so early Sunday.

As for Sunday, I think it went okay. I felt really good about the first service, but something seemed weird/off in the second service, and that started freaking me out and then the paranoia kicked in. I didn't get a real chance to talk to anyone afterward, so I didn't get a lot of positive reinforcement, and that also triggered the paranoia that no one wanted to talk to me because of the "if you can't say anything nice" thing. It's probably all in my head. I'm just going to remember the first service when I felt like I did well and wasn't even that nervous. One reason I didn't get the chance to talk to anyone after the second service is that everyone else I was singing with slipped out after singing instead of sitting through the whole service a second time, and it didn't even occur to me that I could do that until I went back to my spot in the choir loft and the person sitting next to me acted surprised that I hadn't left. But then I was already up there, so it would have looked weird to leave again, so I heard the sermon twice.

Thinking back on the thing about me not really having a lot of "vice" in my life, it's possible that self-denial itself can become a vice if it's done for the wrong reasons or if you expect a reward for it. For me, I suspect it has to do with my tendency to go for difficulty points in life. I also have a weird thing about delayed gratification, where I enjoy looking forward to something more than I enjoy doing or having the thing I'm looking forward to. Anticipation might be my real vice, so if I gave that up for Lent, I'd have to actually do stuff instead of just planning it and looking forward to maybe someday doing it.

A whole team of psychiatrists could probably make careers out of studying me.

It's theoretically spring break here, which means I don't have dance or children's choir. But I'm behind on the book, so I will be making use of the extra time to be super productive. I hope.

Failing at Vice

Since the recent push for my series means I may have new people here who've just discovered me (I got a Facebook message from someone who got the 99 cent book and has already devoured the entire series!), I thought I'd say hello. This is where you'll read about my discourses on writing and the publishing business, my own travails in trying to pound out more books (writing is hard), my efforts to instill some musical knowledge in a group of insane kindergarteners, my personal phobia about singing in public, my never-ending effort to maybe get a bit organized, books I've read, TV shows I'm obsessed with, my fondness for bad TV movies, and my overall attempts to get something resembling a life.

Speaking of which, I'm apparently so bad at vice that I may have to pick up a vice or two in order to properly observe Lent. At church, they passed out some prayer and self-denial calendars, with the idea that instead of giving up one thing for the entire period, you would give up a particular thing each day, and if you fail that day, you donate a dollar to charity (they even passed out the little banks for your fines). I guess whoever made up the calendar and I have very different lifestyles because for the most part, it won't even be a struggle for me. It's things like "don't go shopping except for food," "no personal texting" or "don't go out for coffee." I don't do much shopping, I try to avoid texting, and I don't drink coffee. I do run into a fine line on the days where it's personal computer use, since there's such a blurry line between personal and professional for me. While social networking is a way I keep up with friends, it's also an important part of marketing my work. Instead of splitting hairs, I'll put a dollar in the bank for that day. Then there's the day for no secular reading. That's another dollar day because reading is an important part of my work and I'm currently trying to read my way through the Nebula nominees so I can properly vote. I might have been able to get by if it had been a weekday for that item, but it's a Sunday, and that's the day I catch up on my reading because I try to avoid doing any other work on Sundays. My biggest vice is probably watching TV, but I didn't actually watch TV on the day marked for that.

So maybe I need to go out for coffee (tea, in my case) or take up gaming so I can give it up for a day. I'm fortunate that my work and the things I do for fun are so entwined that I can't give up the things I do for fun without hurting my work. But I probably could stand to have more fun -- not necessarily "vice" fun, but a little self-indulgence wouldn't be bad for me.

But now I must go obtain tea, some spices and some lemons from the Indian market. Most of that is medicinal so I can sing properly on Sunday morning. I'm still getting that adrenaline surge every time I think of it, so maybe I'll be used to it by then. I just need to be able to control my breathing better when I'm nervous.

Choir Nightmares

Okay, so maybe the bestseller thing isn't just a pipe dream I need to give up on. I'm now in the top 100 Kindle books, and the #2 humor book on Amazon overall. I still wish there was at least some tag for fantasy, since the rest of the series is tagged that way, but at least by being in the top 100, it's more visible for people to see and figure out for themselves. And apparently some people are going on to the rest of the series because the second book is #48 in romantic fantasy.

It was a very interesting night for choir, both children and adult. I tried a new movement game out of a book recommended at that choir workshop I went to, and I've come to the conclusion that the theories are lovely, but the person who wrote that book has never met an actual child. Or else my kids are all demons from another dimension and not actual children. I'm trying to subliminally instill the next song we have to sing by playing the recording while we do other things (and it's working -- they're unconsciously singing along). I tried a game where one kid is the leader and does some movement to the music and the other kids are supposed to follow the lead. They just didn't get it. The kids tapped to be leaders would have been moving around, ignoring the previous leader, then when it was their turn to lead, they'd just stand there. It's the corollary of the situation where they're talking over people, raising their hands to be called on and even bursting into tears when they aren't called on right away, and then when I call on them they clam up and duck away without saying anything. We've learned that a story time helps settle them down, so the other teacher had brought some books to read. One kid had read these books and shouted out what would happen. I called out, "Spoilers!" which cracked up the teen helper, who's a Doctor Who fan.

I did have some success introducing them to "When the Saints Go Marching In," from a recording by a French Quarter band. I'd forgotten I had that CD from my last trip to New Orleans, when I made friends with the band playing at an outdoor cafe and ended up sitting in with them as their girl singer.

Then there was adult choir. I'd been assigned to do a quartet for the upcoming Sunday, and the anxiety nightmares had already started because we hadn't yet practiced it as a group before last night's rehearsal. There's a solo within the piece, with the voice unspecified. In Tuesday night's nightmare, we never did manage to rehearse and just got up there to sing in the service, and when we reached the solo part, the director pointed at me. Because I'm paranoid, I did practice the solo on my own yesterday. Then we got to rehearse last night, and the group turned out to be different than I anticipated. When I got the assignment, the whole group was just ordinary choir members. Then it turned out that it was mostly the music grad students who get scholarships for singing with the choir (the ringers). One who normally sings soprano was doing the alto part, and then the men's parts were doubled up, with the ordinary choir members singing along with the pros. And then there was me. I was a wee bit intimidated, with my training consisting of a few continuing education classes up against all these people with master's degrees in voice. But I figured I was safe on the solo, with a soprano soloist in the group. Then we got to the solo part, and the director called my name. I might have actually said "EEEP" out loud. I'm glad I'd practiced it.

I may have actually worked out the worst of the nerves while rehearsing in the group because the people I was singing with scare me more than any audience, since they know singing and are more likely to judge. In last night's anxiety nightmare, I didn't end up getting to the solo because we'd just started singing the piece in church when the secretary from my first job came up to us to demand to know what pens we wanted her to order for the office. We tried ignoring her and kept singing until we finally gave up. I'm not sure what Jung would have to say about that dream. I have three more nights before I have to do this in two services, so there's no telling what I can dream between now and then.

Normally, I'd find the piece on YouTube so I could hear the accompaniment, but it turns out this is a fairly common hymn, so I may have to search for the particular arrangement. At least I'll get a dress rehearsal in the 8:30 service during spring break, the morning of the time change. It won't be a big crowd.

The Work of Daydreaming

It doesn't look like I'll have my dream of hitting a bestseller list on the basis of this one promotion, as I'm now sliding in the rankings, but it still helps improve exposure overall, which is good. The next book in the series is creeping up in the rankings, so some people may be moving on to the rest. By the way, the cheap price on the first book is only available for the e-book in North America. The publisher doesn't have the rights outside North America. I'm working on getting English-language e-books available in the rest of the world. I doubt they'll be in the 99 cents range because there are expenses to cover in getting the artwork, cover design, formatting and all that, but they'll be available at what I hope is a reasonable price for non-American readers. Stay tuned for release dates.

In the meantime, I'm still plugging away at the current project. This article on making yourself work came across my news feed at a particularly good time. I'd embroider the tips on a throw pillow to remind myself constantly, but that would be a massive procrastination project and I need to be writing.

On the other hand, the creative brain does work in strange ways, as seen in another article I came across. Daydreaming does count as work! In fact, it's vital to the work I do because I kind of have to see the movie of a scene in my head before I can write it. Much of my work day consists of staring into space, watching mental movies, and then trying to capture what I've just seen in words. That's been part of the problem with the pieces I've been rewriting lately. I had tried to write the scenes without seeing the mental movie first.

I know today's going to be a low-productivity day because of choir stuff and some errands I need to run on the way there. It may even be a mostly mental movie watching day because I have stuff to figure out, since I changed the main plot for one of the characters.

More Adult-Friendly YA Fantasy

Thanks to all who helped spread the word about the sale on Enchanted, Inc. It went as high as 214 on the Kindle bestseller list, but last time I checked it was on the way down again, so I may have peaked. It probably doesn't help that the publisher seems to have classified it as "humor" and it isn't showing up as fantasy at all, which makes it harder for readers to find it. Hmm, maybe this is what any problem in the first place might have been. Unfortunately, my agent is out of the hemisphere at the moment, so I can't get her to talk to the publisher about this and I don't currently have a direct contact.

But enough about my books. I want to talk about other people's books!

I went on a YA kick recently, but they were YA that didn't read as "YA" to me, so they're not only adult-friendly, but strongly recommended for adults.

First, there was Rachel Caine's latest, Prince of Shadows, which is the Romeo and Juliet story from the viewpoint of another character, fleshing things out and adding some behind-the-scenes explanations. Now that story makes so much more sense. We even learn why those two idiots fell so passionately in love after one meeting that they were willing to die for each other. Now I kind of want to re-read Romeo and Juliet with this in mind. What I was really impressed with, though, was the use of language. The narrative and dialogue definitely have that Shakespearian flavor while still being readable. These people talk in a way that sounds like the characters in the play, with the witty wordplay and colorful phrasing, but it's not at all like struggling through Shakespeare. I'm really not sure how she did that. I shall have to ask next time I see her. (I should probably put in a disclaimer that Rachel Caine is a personal friend -- I've been to her house often and even traveled with her and her husband -- but that doesn't affect my opinion of this book.)

And then the book I read on the wacky weather weekend, the first part in the springlike warmth on the patio and the second part snuggled under blankets during a sleet storm, was Hero by Alethea Kontiss. This is a follow-up to Enchanted, which I loved last year, though I think I like this one even more. This series is about the Woodcutter family -- the family all those fairy tales are about. This book is about Saturday, the tomboy daughter who's a bit miffed that her gift from their fairy godmother was an axe, not a magical power like all her sisters got. But then she finds herself having a great adventure and being in great danger when she's captured by a giant bird and taken to the mountain lair of a witch who wants to open a gateway to the demon world. The witch's other captive is a boy who's been enchanted to appear like the witch's daughter. The two of them know that they have to stop the witch, but doing so could endanger their own lives. I really liked these characters and felt for their dilemma. I didn't want this book to end, and the ending seemed to leave it open for a sequel, though it looks like the next book is about another sister. Maybe there will be a few books putting all the pieces on the board before tying up the larger plot.

These books remind me a lot of the 500 Kingdoms books by Mercedes Lackey, in that they use fairy tale elements woven together in often unexpected ways, with the characters somewhat aware that they're living in a fairy tale. I emerge from these books wishing I could stay in the world a little longer and wanting to write something that makes me feel this way.

Ooh, and fangirling pays off because I mentioned something about this on a Facebook post of someone who turned out to be a mutual friend, and Alethea Kontis posted this link of behind-the-scenes goodies and bonus material. Now I must go friend her and we'll become the very best of buddies in a not at all creepy fangirly stalkery way.

Weather Whiplash

It's 99 cent Enchanted, Inc. week! The price has dropped for both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I don't know how long this is supposed to last. The prices for books 5, 6 and 7 have also been lowered, since we're at "paperback" time. It would be really cool if during this special promotion I could manage to hit at least the top 150 at USA Today so I could call myself a "bestselling" author, but since it was still in the 6,000 range at Amazon the last time I checked, I won't get my hopes too high. I know that if you're reading this, you've probably already got a copy, but any tweeting, blogging, holding friends at gunpoint to make them buy multiple copies, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

We had bizarro Texas weather this weekend. I spent both Saturday and Sunday drinking tea and reading. On Saturday, I was sitting on the porch, listening to birds singing. On Sunday, I was huddled under blankets on the sofa, listening to sleet rattling against my windows. The high on Saturday was around 80. At around 7:30 on Sunday morning, it was 30, and it dropped from there. It's still really cold today. School was cancelled around the area because of ice and sleet on the roads, but the roads near me look pretty clear. There is ice on my sidewalk, though.

Fortunately, I don't have to go anywhere today. I just have work to do. I realized that in addition to the rewrite putting the character in a tricky position, the initial draft had been more "telling" than "showing" and then I realized that was because I didn't have a clear image in my mind of what was happening. I had a list of things that were happening, but didn't see them. So, before I let myself read on the patio on Saturday, I sat on the patio and brainstormed. I also wrote the song the characters in the scene are singing. Now to put that in the book.

Since the bad weather didn't start until Sunday morning, I was able to get to the library opening, and I did not trample the mayor. She was a little eager to get inside, herself. I'll have to get used to the shelves being in different places. I used to be able to just zoom in to whatever I wanted, but everything is different now. I can't tell if the adult areas are any bigger. Most of the expansion was in the children's and teen sections. I'm just so glad to have the library back, and am glad that I had books before it started sleeting.

Oh Beloved Library!

Friday!!! Not that it means that much to me anymore, but still, Grimm is back at last, and that's a reason to look forward to Fridays.

I was kind of a slacker this week, but I got my work time in yesterday. I was making good progress in rewriting the first half of the book to fit with what I realized the story was all about when I hit a scene that needed a lot of work, and then the changes ended up putting one of my main characters in a real dilemma. He's surrounded by a group of beings who are becoming allies, and then they're attacked by an enemy group of the same kind of beings. He's armed to fight this kind of being, but anything widespread he does to fend off the attackers will also hurt his allies. That kind of rock/hard place dilemma is wonderful for fiction, but it's really hard to write. I spent quite a bit of time last night trying to think my way out of the situation. I may have a solution. We shall see.

Tomorrow morning, our renovated neighborhood library reopens, and I think I will have to go over for the ribbon-cutting/opening celebration, even if it means interacting with (ugh) politicians. I might possibly trample the mayor on my way into the newly opened building, where I will immediately fling myself on the nearest bookshelf and sob, "Never leave me again, oh beloved library."

Or maybe not. I don't usually go in much for dramatics, but this is a library, so it's a special case.

And the fact that I'm going to pick up some reserved books today will not at all dampen my enthusiasm. Yeah, I could wait until tomorrow, but I finished my last book last night, so this is a crisis.

And then once I pry my fingers away from the bookshelf, I may go to the Irish festival downtown for some good Celtic music fun. That almost counts as work research. It should be a nice day for it before we get yet another cold front with a possibility of sleet.

Avoiding Idiot Plotholes

I had a minor success with the kids last night. The next song we're doing for church is rather slow and kind of boring, so I was worried that they wouldn't be into it. And they weren't, really. But then I had them dance to different songs at different tempos to let them see the difference in the way you move to fast and slow tempos, and I snuck that one in again. It's a slow waltz, and I was really surprised that a few of them even picked up on that and held hands with each other to do a waltz (or at least pretend to dance like in a ballroom) -- and then they asked to do it again when the song ended. On the other hand, one thing I thought they'd get into flopped big-time. After next week, I get a break because of spring break, and then we're into the final run up to the end of the year. I have a feeling we'll have attention issues because we're having a jazz pancake supper before the Ash Wednesday service, and the supper (with a jazz band playing) starts about fifteen minutes before choir ends. We may go listen (and dance) to the jazz if it's loud enough to be distracting.

I've been low on productivity this week, but today I have no excuses. I did my errands (car safety inspection and grocery shopping) this morning and I don't have to go anywhere tonight. I have to fix a scene because I forgot to check the sunset times for that date and location and I'd established what one of the characters in the scene does after dark, so now I have to move the setting and context slightly, and I think it will make for a more interesting scene. But it is annoying to get to the end of a scene and go "oh, wait, what time is it?" I'd already had to change things after going back and re-reading the previous scenes because I'd forgotten who knew what, and I had characters discussing something that it turned out neither of them knew. Fortunately, it helped that neither of them knew because I'd have had to patch an idiocy plothole if they did know and didn't realize earlier what was going on.

I may need to start keeping an easy-to-reference file of all the plot elements, who knows about them, when they learned and how they learned. Or I could write faster so I don't forget what was in the last scene.

Now I'm going to go make some chicken noodle soup.

Traditional vs. Self Publishing

Because there's been a lot of discussion in the publishing/writing world lately and because this is top of mind after an interview I did a week or so ago, I thought it might be a good time to discuss the pros and cons of traditional and self-publishing. Just a few years ago, I was clinging to the old ways, where we thought of self or independent publishing as something kind of sleazy. Now it's opened a lot of new opportunities for authors to be in control of their careers. I'm basing this on my experiences as a "hybrid" author who's worked both ways -- with multiple publishers and going it alone. Mind you, it's all changing so fast that this advice may be out of date next week.

Control
In traditional publishing, you may have some degree of input, but the publisher has the final say on most things. You have the most control over content, but the editor can refuse to accept a book if you refuse to make changes the editor deems absolutely necessary to make the book publishable, and your agent and maybe even lawyers might need to get involved. You may be given some input on the title and cover, but it's possible that your input will be entirely ignored. You generally don't get any say on release date or price. On the other hand, the people who make these decisions are professionals who've worked with a lot of books and have a good idea of what works and what doesn't.

In self-publishing, you're in control of everything -- you have final say on the content, formatting, title, cover, price, distribution and release date. This can be both good and bad. It's nice to be in control of your book, but it's also a lot of responsibility and work. If the cover turns off readers, it's your fault. You can't say the publisher failed you. In order to make the best decisions, you'll need to do a lot of research and consult with people who know what they're doing. Even if you hire a professional cover designer, you should probably study books similar to yours so you'll know if a proposed design is likely to fit well enough in the genre to signal to readers what it is while also standing out. Likewise, you'll need to look into sales patterns to get a sense of what release schedule and pricing is likely to work best.

Bottom line: It depends on how big a control freak you are and how knowledgable you are which one would be best for you.

Money
In traditional publishing, the publisher covers all the cost of producing the book. You usually get paid an up-front advance that may be divided into payments upon signing the contract, upon acceptance of the final manuscript and maybe even upon publication. Depending on the publisher and on your contract, that can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to millions. A first book with a major publisher tends to average in the $5,000-$20,000 range, unless the book goes to auction and is in high demand. The author usually earns around 6-15 percent of the cover price for print books, and the e-book rate seems to be in constant flux, but 25 percent is in the ballpark. Once the book has earned royalties that go beyond the advance, you'll receive royalty payments twice a year. If you had a high advance, your book may never earn out and receive extra payments, or it may take years to earn out.

In self publishing, you pay up front for costs related to producing the book -- editing, copyediting, formatting, cover design and art, marketing, etc. Depending on the sales venue and your cover price, you may earn around 70 percent of the cover price. How much you earn depends on how well your book sells, which is nearly impossible to predict. You get paid monthly, usually starting the month after your book goes on sale, though different venues have different payment schedules.

Bottom line: Self-publishing requires some investment but can pay off. Keep in mind, though, that the people making millions are generally outliers -- you hear about them because they're unusual. There's more money up-front with traditional publishing without the financial risk, but you keep more of the money from self-publishing. The cover price is likely to be lower with self-publishing, but you get more of it.

Timing
Traditional publishing doesn't move very quickly. It generally takes about a year from the time you turn in a manuscript until it's published. My next traditionally published book took more than a year to sell, and it will be published more than two years after it was bought. Publishers generally don't publish more than a book a year from any one author unless they're doing a special promotion where they do back-to-back books to build an author or series.

With self-publishing, you can turn around quickly. My last self-published book was available for sale within two months of me finishing it. You can put out as many books a year as you can write.

Bottom line: Success in self publishing tends to come from frequency, so if you're a one-book-a-year writer, it may not be for you. But if you can write faster than publishers can publish, you can get your books out there, and you can take advantage of market trends much more quickly.

Opportunity
Traditional publishing has gatekeepers -- you have to find an editor who likes your work, and then the editor has to convince the publisher and the beancounters that this book will make money. Most books are rejected. Sometimes they're rejected because of quality, but sometimes they're rejected because the topic doesn't fit a trend, because the perceived audience is considered too small or just because they don't quite know what to do with a particular book that doesn't fit any obvious niche. However, because of the gatekeeping, a traditionally published book is generally considered to have a stamp of approval that makes it eligible for most revue venues, and the authors are considered professionals by organizations and events.

Anyone can self-publish anything. This can be both good and bad. Books that don't fit an obvious niche can find an audience, but there's also less quality control, and that has given self-published books a bit of a stigma. Unless the author has an established reputation, readers may hesitate to take the chance of finding a badly written, unedited book after they've been burned a few times. Many revue venues won't consider self-published books, and unless the authors have really made a name for themselves, they're not considered eligible as guests at conferences and conventions and may not meet professional organization membership requirements, though this is changing rapidly.

Bottom line: This is probably the biggest reason I'm publishing a lot of my own work, since I don't fit the trends or niches, but I have the advantage of also being traditionally published, which gets me through the door for a lot of promotional opportunities.

Marketing/Publicity/Distribution
A traditional publisher has a marketing and publicity department with a lot of established connections. They promote books to booksellers and libraries and make review copies available to the media. They can arrange booksignings at the corporate level. Your book may be available in brick-and-mortar bookstores. However, most of the publicity and marketing effort is focused on booksellers. You'll still have to do much of the outreach to readers. You'll have to produce your own web site and marketing materials, unless you're a huge bestseller, and you'll probably have to buy any advertising you want.

A self-published book can be available, even in print, at the major online booksellers but is less likely to get brick-and-mortar distribution, though that's becoming less important as chains close and shrink and more people buy their books online. You can make review copies available at NetGalley. You'll have to do all the publicity work yourself or hire someone to help.

Bottom line: Publicity is a lot of work either way, and the changing landscape is changing the importance of physical distribution. This is one of those areas that's really in flux.

Agents
You probably should have an agent for dealing with traditional publishers because their contracts are so complex and you want to make sure you hold onto as many of your rights as possible. But getting an agent can be a real challenge.

You don't need an agent to self-publish your books, but if you've had some success there, you might want an agent to help sell foreign translation rights, audio rights, film rights, etc. Agents may also be able to get deals where you keep electronic rights and just sell print rights to a publisher to get your books in stores. Some agents facilitate self-publishing, using their resources and their clout with the various bookselling venues. If you've been a bestseller on your own, it'll be a lot easier to get an agent.

Bottom line: You're probably going to eventually need an agent if you're going to make a career out of this (though I've seen a number of authors disagree about this).