I began writing when I was 10 years old. Poetry was my first love.  I continued all through my life but did nothing like publishing anything until I was about 40 years old.  My oldest son found my first novel on top of the furnace in a closet. "Mom, what's this?"  "Oh, just something I wrote when you were a baby."   He leafed through it and eventually talked me in to publishing it.   I made the mistake (but a true learning process) of publishing with Xlibris.   After firing them, I again made a terrible mistake. I published with Publish America.  (When will I learn?)  I learned, believe me.  Now I publish on my own. I owe no one anything from what I sell, I only have to write and buy back (at a fair price) what I want to sell.  That, to me, is a fair handshake.