You spend so long trying to get an agent and when you do, you think it's all over bar collecting your cheque. Really, it's just the beginning.

Carroll paid for printing and illustration, supervised everything himself and Macmillan simply published and distributed it under their imprint in the usual way. I'm sure he would have sent an agent mad. He almost sent Macmillan's mad, although in a way I think they rather liked him a bit the way that it can sometimes be quite nice to have an itch if you can scratch it..

Anyway, if the figures I have been seeing in "The Author" about the economics of publishing are correct, we made almost as much money publishing our small-run "Lewis Carroll In His Own Account" than many authors collect from legitimate publishing houses. It'll be interesting to see how much I make from this biography, if it ever gets out there!