Photo by Cara Lopez Lee I’m living a double life: promoting the new edition of my memoir while also pitching my novel to agents. In one life, I’ve arrived at a pinnacle. In the other, I’m standing breathless on a false summit, staring up the steep slope ahead, wondering if I’ll ever reach the top. The view always promises to be better up there, but I find it important to pause and appreciate the climb. Back in 2006 to 2007, I began researching my historical novel. I explored East LA and El Paso from my grandmother’s and father’s point of view; interviewed family, locals, and historians; read books about Chinese-American and Mexican-American history; and studied archival photos and articles. That same year, I sent fifty queries to agents to pitch my recently completed memoir, They Only Eat Their Husbands . In 2007, I registered a synopsis of the novel I planned to write, Daughter on the Borderline , with the Writers Guild of America, West. That same year, I landed an agent...

After ten years of writing, polishing, submitting, and collecting rejections, I was thrilled to finally meet a small press publisher, Lee Emory of Treble Heart Books , who liked my work and believed in me enough to publish my first two books. Even though self-publishing no longer carries the stigma it once had and is becoming wildly popular with the ease of computer programs and publishing sites such as CreateSpace, etc., I still wanted to be able to say, “Yes, I have a PUBLISHER.” The small press accounts for $30 billion in annual book sales according to Writer Magazine’s “The Writer’s Guide to Getting Published”, and fills niche publishing markets, such as poetry, memoirs, gift books, even “westerns,” which the large publishing houses keep saying are “dead.” (If you believe that, take a look at the book lists from Women Writing the West and Western Writers of America .) Advantages of working with a small publisher : • Often, it is somewhat easier for new authors to break in, ...