Very impressive @agmoore! It's no easy task to land in the top 10. That's was so nice of you to offer your books and services for free. Having people read your work is really the ultimate honor, much more than sales. It's certainly a tough profession and never gets easier.

I had some decent luck in the beginning, getting articles published, but when I waded into the book writing/publishing realm I discovered how difficult it really was. Winning the Thurber prize in 2005 helped a little but not enough to land a major publisher or literary agent, that's when I turned to self-publishing. I'm happy to be winding down the book publishing now. There are far too many authors and too few readers these days.