Last-minute sanity check

1. Larry McMurtry would not agree
2. Last I checked I did not have leprosy
3. We all think we have produced a good product
4. We all are told "your project is not right for us"
I know few authors who get their first novel published. LOTTERY was my third novel. My opinion take it or leave it?
Start your next novel... and attend some writing conferences.
150 queries over a year is REALLY a lot.
If you are so easily discouraged after one project then maybe Lulu is for you (not the same as POD) and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Last time I looked these people still published Westerns and they take unsolicited subs
http://www.halebooks.com/submissions.asp?TAG=&CID=

Their Black Horse Western series run at around 45k

Everyone has to make their own decision on this, but my feeling for myself is that if no publisher is willing to fork down money to publish my book, I'd be better off writing a new book, waiting for the market to improve, and allowing my skills to develop than going the POD route with this one. I do have an agent, so I don't think there is a problem with quality, but if I hadn't been able to find an agent, I would have assumed the book just wasn't god enough yet.

There are reasons to self publish. None of which have you listed. To self publish because you are bitter about the industry, is simply not a good enough reason, and shows a huge lack of respect for people who DO self publish. It isn't simply a matter of self publishing a book, there is also the matter of promoting it, the money you will invest into it. True self publishing successes (and they are few and far between) happen because the author stopped everything and devoted all his/her time to the work. Those people I admire highly.

You say you sent out 150 queries. Did you ever wonder if maybe the problem wasn't your story, but the query itself? Why not post it in SYW (share your work) and see? Even though you've sent out queries probably to EVERYONE at this stage, the likelihood an agent/editor would remember a query letter they rejected a while ago, especially because they didn't read a partial or full (if you did get any partial/full requests obviously don't send to those agents/editors) is slim. Fix up the query and send it out again!

And I don't think westerns are dead. In fact my editor wanted me to write one for her (I may some day, just not now). I think in fact westerns could be one of those next trends, its a genre that hasn't had a lot of focus, but lately there have been a few movies and tv shows that have reinvigorated the genre.

Or, like lkp suggests. Maybe your book just isn't good enough. Maybe it's time to write another book. If you can write one, you can write another, I am certain of that.

Oh and I like ORION am one of those leprosy authors you speak. So are over half a dozen of my writer friends who all got published for the first time this year.

There is nothing wrong with self publishing, but I'm not sure it's something you really want to do.

Just chiming in to say that "first-time authors have leprosy" is one of those common, and extremely damaging, writers' myths. As with any myth or stereotype, there is a seed of truth--getting first fiction published certainly isn't easy. But a look at the reviews in any major industry review venue, such as Publishers Weekly, should be enough to puncture the notion that first-time writers can't get published. (This idea also flies in the face of logic. Every established writer was once an unpublished newbie. If first-time writers couldn't get published, there would be no writers at all.)

Did you try to market your book as a Western? The Western genre is very tiny, but Western-themed books are undergoing a resurgence of sorts, sidestepping the genre issue by merging with the larger field of historical novels.

- Victoria