A: Gosh, I got so tired of literary agents and publishers trying to beat down my door, and then degrading themselves in all kinds of ways just to get me to sign my book with them. The gifts, enticements, fully comped luxury cruises . . . it was all too much for me, too fast. My head started to swim with their offers. In the end, I couldn’t decide between the million dollar deals or the 50% royalties, the movie rights or the . . . *snork* Huh? What? Oh, yeah, I’m awake now *shakes head, rubs eyes*. I’m sorry, I must have dozed off for a minute. What was the question again? The fact of the matter is that The Eighth Scroll entered the market at a particularly bad time. Because of its success, the market was flooded with Da Vinci Code knock-offs authored by Dan Brown wanna-be’s. The market for religious thrillers was flooded. In addition, the global economic crisis of 2007 had hit, and the publishing market was in a tailspin. Several publishers went out of business, others went through the painful process of downsizing and reorganization. Doors were closed to most first-time authors, leaving them to compete in an industry flooded with talent, threatened by the advent of digital books, and pushed to the brink of extinction by the new breed of on-demand publishers and the rapidly expanding competition of audio-visual entertainment. In this time, new authors face one of the most challenging literary markets America has ever seen. Given the daunting obstacles to publication in today’s market, I decided to self-publish. This allows me to keep control of my books, at the expense of limiting my market exposure. If a literary agent or publisher offers representation, I would probably seriously consider, but for now I am happy self-promoting.