AP Wire | 11/21/2005 | Writers turn to self-publishing: “Five years ago, author ReShonda Tate Billingsley had a story to tell and sent out a flood of query letters trying to interest the big publishers in her book, My Brother’s Keeper.

‘I tried to go the traditional route and sent out letters to agents,’ she said. That didn’t work. Billingsley, who was living in Oklahoma City at the time, began wondering why she was sitting around waiting for someone to validate her talent, she said.

So she turned to self-publishing, a way of getting a book out to the public by using nontraditional distribution channels. A year later, she had sold 15,000 copies, and Simon & Schuster was knocking at her door for a deal.”