This is a blog about self-publishing my first novel, Edith’s War. I’d toiled over the manuscript for three years. Then, knowing my agent of choice wouldn’t consider manuscripts without first seeing an outline,I fired one off. I daren’t send to more than one agency because I’d read stern warnings about multiple submissions. Three months later I was ecstatic because the agency expressed interest ... could they see the first thirty pages? Months passed before I heard that they wanted to read the whole shebang. I dispatched the manuscript while working on my Booker Prize acceptance speech. Then weeks-to-months later I received a ‘Dear John,’ letter with mutterings about ‘interesting, but not quite right for us’ and ‘well-written, but in the present economic climate.’ After multiple similar encounters that gobbled up a couple of years ... it’s time to self-publish.