Can’t get an agent to represent your novel?  Or maybe you have an agent but your book has been rejected by a lot of publishers.   What now?  Put your manuscript in a drawer and forget about it?  Cry profusely?  Curse the gate keepers?  (Darn you all!)  How about publishing it yourself?  This is an act of desperation, you say, no self- respecting writer would actually publish their own book.  I beg to differ.  Maybe all that’s missing are a few role models.  Here are some writers who were rejected and decided to self- publish their books.

• Edgar Allan Poe
• Carl Sandburg
• James Joyce
• Erza Pound
• Upton Sinclair
• Henry David Thoreau
• William E. B. DuBois
• Virginia Wolf
• Rudyard Kipling
• Charles Dickens
• Walt Whitman
• L. Frank Baum
• Marcel Proust
• Steven King (pre-Carrie!)
• Richard Nelson Boles
  (What Color Is Your Parachute)

The above is only a partial list of famous self-published writers. These writers didn’t have the option of putting out their own ebooks, but you do. Check out Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual for help. Also take a look at Lindsay Buroker’s great blog on indie ebook publishing. Joanna Penn (The Creative Penn) has an excellent blog on ebook publishing too. Don’t let rejection stand in the way of your writing dreams!