Author Event

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This Saturday we had the third annual author event called W.O.W. at our local library. We had 3 published authors speak. Afterwards I overheard someone saying how inspirational the event was. Myself? I felt deflated. Getting published is a long arduous process, selling the books even more so. You have to do more work than you did in producing the book to begin with. Persistence is key. Pounding the pavement going into stores and asking them to sell your books is a chore but must be done. No matter how you are published - with an agent, by a reputable publisher - you still must market your own book. One author, Nicola Ross, has published many non-fiction books on hiking, and articles in magazines as well. She told a story how she was on her way to a city an hour from Toronto to do an interview. She stopped in stores along the way to ask if they would sell her book. One place was a small coffee shop. The owner was accommodating and told her where to put the books, which turned out to be the bottom shelf under the cream & sugar station, FACING THE WALL. She figured she didn't have a hope in heck. A couple of weeks later the store owner called her and asked her for more books. When she returned to the store they placed the books at the cash register. She sold over 100 books in that store. Other advice given was to network, make connections, before you even publish your book. That's what social networking is for. Make friends online and hope they will support you when the time comes. If a publisher or agent says no (rejection) so what? Just keep going. It seems the only way to get published these days is to self-publish, which costs money. Publishers only want manuscripts submitted by agents. Agents only open their submission window for a certain period of time and then close it. Paying an editor is a must. More money. I just don't know if I can afford to go this route. As much as I love these author events, I did leave a little discouraged. Local authors were selling their books at this event and some of them did very well, others maybe sold one, and others none. I was at a table with my writing group's anthology that we published in 2010. I didn't sell any. I did at our Open Mic Night in April. That money goes to the writing group though. Any other hopeful authors here get discouraged with the process? Or do you KNOW people?