I know you are, but you're the exception Teri. What you're doing is the equivelent of sneaking into Clive Davis' mansion and handing him your demo tape.
Your success (which we all hope happens), doesn't create a roadmap for the writing universe. It will be an anomaly.
I deal in what is. Not what we wish the industry to be. Unless you catch lighting in a bottle (The Sh@ck, write 10 books and sell them for .99 cents and ride the paranormal wave, etc), a writer with any hopes of having a financially lucrative writing career will have to go through your (3) to (2) to (1).
Steve, we were writing at the same time.
You're right -- but here's why. There are no roadmaps and there cannot be.
if I have success, and if I then write up "how to sell a book without an agent" and self publish my book and sell millions of copies, it will not work any more because the nature of the beast means there cannot be a road map.
You cannot have writers following like lemings and thousands of them landing contracts. There must be land mines, booby traps, mirrored walls.
What appears to be a road map (Query, get offer, revise, wait, revise, wait, allow agent to submit, get dumped, rinse and repeat) is in fact filled with more land mines and booby traps and mirrored walls than the route I've chosen.