You're right, Jess. Neat!

Eragon got published because Carl Hiaasen's stepson bought a copy during one of the (over 100) promotional talksPaolini gave. He loved it, and showed it to his stepdad, who in turn, showed it to his publisher.

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry is probably the most recent of the self-pubbed to traditional pubbed routes. She and her husband owned their own small press, pubbed the book, and promoted it relentlessly in Massachusetts where they live and the book is set. It really caught on with reading groups, which led to it being reviewed widely, which then led to its being picked up by a mainstream publisher.

Grisham had been published by a very small press; A Time to Kill had been remaindered by the press, so he bought out the remaining copies and began selling them himself out of the trunk of his car. Once he got upwards of about five thousand copies sold, he then got the attention of a mainstream publisher.

It's a shit ton of work, the self-pubbing gig, but it can be wildly successful if you have the right combination of ingredients and luck.

Has that happened?

James Rollins followed a similar route, though not through self-publishing. He started out with a very small publisher, but after years of putting out books, he recently got picked up by a large publisher who's now re-releasing his old books, too.

Wow, I never knew that about John Grisham, Barb! Neat.

Scola, you continue to rock in ita-compensating ways. Rent duly paid, bad things avoided.

Admittedly, my brain is tapioca today, but explain to me why I can't find more references to Morpheus within classical mythology books?

Just got back from the corner market. It's official. Page 1, above the fold, is for sale at the LA Times. Actually almost all of page 1 is devoted to an ad for Alice in Wonderland.

Well, mac re-melt down and ran way ahead of me on the way to the subway. Then got his ipod on the subway and calmed all the way. Then wanted me to come in to therapy with him and got very close to a melt down again talking about the loss of ds playing. I got to speak my piece about it is an awful mind-controlling tool of the devil, but even with the suggestion of getting more ps2 games, he is unwilling to concede. The therapist has asked me to consider an arrangement where I hold the ds between all approved playtimes. I countered that I would at least lioke to go until the 27th ds free an mac was near tears. Feh.

Morpheus is a pretty minor figure in Greek mythology, is why.

My weekend plans include ice skating on Saturday and a birthday party at Peterson's Car Museum on Sunday. And then looking at Oscar fashions Sunday night. Egad, Oscars, really? I had no idea.

Ugh msbelle.