I really appreciate all the insight...but let me clear some things up because I obviously wasn't very clear the first time. The amount of people interested in reading my novel consists of former students, teachers, principals, etc. Certainly not not an abundance, but also not just a handful either.
Almost everyone has a wide network of acquaintances who promise to buy their books when they're published. Very few find that all who promised to buy their books actually do.
You might be different, of course, and sell to all of these people. But chances are, you won't.
To give you an idea: an acquaintance of mine recently self-published her first novel. It's a good novel, and she published it as well as she could. She was convinced it would sell well because she could count over three hundred friends and acquaintances, and she taught too, so had a few hundred students who she thought would buy her book.
In the first three months after publication, her book sold four copies.
I have researched self-pub before, so my question was simply why does it receive such a bad rap sometimes?
Because while self publishing can be a brilliant thing for some people it's proved to be a misery-making thing for many others. Many people go into it without first knowing what's involved, and many people go into it with high sales expectations, only to be disappointed.
I realize that once it goes online it's been published. I'm a published playwright, so I get it. I have had some beta readers read it in PDF with mainly favorable reviews. I haven't sent it out to many publishers. Only TWO have it right now. It's been mainly agents. Believe me, I'd rather have an agent behind me working a deal than trying to do it myself. With my plays, it's very straightforward and easy, but novels are a bit more complicated.
It doesn't matter how many publishers have your book now: what matters is how many you've sent it out to. If it's already been rejected by the publishers an agent would submit it to, you've left that agent with nothing to do.
The e-pub idea just came to me after reading about some people's success doing it. I'm not ready to abandon the traditional method quite yet. Thanks again for everyone's response.
E-publishing isn't the same thing as self publishing. And it's trade publishing, not "traditional"--please read the guidelines.
Of course I'd like to reach a wider audience. I was just curious about the success some people have going the e-pub route. That's all. Not generally in it for the money. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Read a few of the self publishing diaries. The numbers are there.