A real specific question

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well. I am in a really scary position and I was hoping to glean some info from the more experienced members of this board. I am currently an unagented first time writer (I had to drop the agent I had, wasn't doing anything for me and was truly failing to accompish his end of the agreement with the sending and all) and I have a fantasy trilogy on my hands that I am really proud of. I love writing, and my dream much like millions of others would be to be the next best seller, but my realistic goal is just to live a modest lifestyle off of writing. Even that I know is unlikely, but I figure I should set a high goal. As for right now, I am running out of options as far as agents go, and I want to start querying small presses once I exhaust my list of possible agents. I queried DAW and Tor, but it was pretty obvious that my work was never read by either judging by the way the package came back (On one of the rejections they even put the wrong name of the book, even though it was clearly where they requested it, till this day I can't explain how they goofed) I feel as if smaller presses will be my next choice, but here's the question, and I am SO sorry I gave that longwinded explanation, I just wanted the full scoop on why I feel the way I do. I think the book could do well even though I haven't had much luck in the publishing world with it, I have given the book a little exposure through other venues and I've gotten positive feedback, so I am confident enough in it that should I get rejected by every single one of my options, I will self publish as best as I can.

But, should I self publish, I know I have to sell a high amount of books in a relatively short amount of time to get the attention of an agent. Should I be that lucky and I do get an agent because of my self publishing efforts, will I end up being without any further options anyway? I ask because I have read that agents do not like to submit to publishers that have previously rejected you. Wouldn't the high self published numbers balance the fact that a publisher had rejected you earlier? Thanks a lot for your patience and for actually reading all this! I just don't know if I should just skip the small presses or actually self publish right now. My goal is to get published any way I can, and if I have to sell ten thousand self published copies in under a year to get noticed, then I will try my hardest!

Thanks a lot you guys, I have been reading this board for a little over half a year and the generosity and kindness you all show here gets me breathless everytime. Truly, thank you very much for taking time out of your day to help me. And to clarify my position for sassandgroove and others, I really have tried a lot of agents. Ms. Strauss, I have looked at sources like Publisher's Marketplace, I bought the Herman book, of course I went through P&E and this forum for any chance of a good agent that represents fantasy. I've gotten very few promising moments (as far as personalized rejections, or requests for more info and the like) I just don't want to have to requery the same agents again, I would hate to have them look at my name and automatically blacklist me. I just thought self publishing would be an option because you always hear of the success stories behind them, G.P. Taylor, M.J. Rose, I think Christopher Paolini started that way as well. Of course you never hear of the tragedies of self publishing, but at least if I self published I would have a somewhat small amount of control in my fate. That's why I was leaning towards it...

P.S. (again) Triceretops, you like dinos, I like monkies! Well... until they get mad, then they just do all sorts of horrible things, hehe. Thanks again!