RE: So... You Want To Get Published
Take note. Vaughndemont is right on. If anything, the process is more difficult. A high quality cover for a self-published book will run you around 2k. A high quality edit will cost at least that. Getting an agent can take years and years, even if what you have is excellent.
Take a look at what other writers are churning out. Most of it is pretty awful. Less than 5% is even worthwhile. Well, unfortunately the same is true of agents. It is a rare talent to be able to identify really great writing from an unexpected source, especially while wading through the sea of garbage everybody else is producing.
Just because you know that you have something excellent does not mean anybody else will be able to recognize that. Think I'm kidding?
http://www.litrejections.com/best-sellers-initially-rejected/
If you think it's worth your time to spend years and years writing and then more years and years waiting for an agent to recognize you, or slogging it out spending God knows how many thousands of dollars on self promotion, cover art, editing, etc to self-publish, just know that it will require an unbelievable level of drive and persistence before you ever find an audience. For almost everyone who tries to do it, in the end it would have been much more lucrative and enjoyable to just take a nice easy desk job with dependable pay and weekends off.
It's just the truth.
Yeah, it's the unfortunate truth. I mentioned in an earlier entry that in my first writing class our instructor brought in a local writer to trash all of our starry-eyed hopes for literary fame. In grad school, an agent actually came in to give advice on our pitches and out of 160 people, she only wanted to talk to 3 people afterward.
People don't become professional writers because it seems like a fun activity, it's often because they can't imagine doing anything else, no matter how much they might want to.