Surviving Self-Published

Surviving in the world of so many other authors who are self published can be daunting. The continuous search for an agent can be so disheartening you want to give up. Sometimes you wonder if you want to continue, is it really that important to have an agent...the truth unfortunately is yes, if you want to make any money at it. I find it not only fascinating, but also extremely amusing, that many of the 'large and well known authors' do not even write their own works. What! you say, oh yes I said it and it is the truth. There are many top selling authors who have huge contracts and make nice six figure salaries that do not even write their books any more. They come up with the idea, outline the chapters, and hand it over to a professional team of writers who write the book for them. Then they proof read it, approve or disapprove, and it goes on its way to the bookshelves of thousands of stores nationwide where the unsuspecting reader purchases it believing they are reading that author's hard work when it is really the work of ten to twenty other people. So yeah, I don't have an agent, and yes I am not well known or a household word, but at night when I go to bed I can say, "I wrote every single word, and I am pleased with what I accomplished." Too bad they can't do that.... So when I get discouraged or start feeling that my work is not what the world wants to read, I say to myself, "I am a great writer. I am original, and one day when the world discovers who I am, the only people I will have to thank for my success is my fans and myself."