Writer’s dilemma

I saw on an agent’s blog, in a post on why she’d rejected fifty queries, that a writer should figure two years from query to shelf. TWO YEARS!

That’s two years from when your novel is finished, revised, edited, and ready to sell, until you actually have buyers and readers. No wonder the traditional route takes so long to build a career. At 53, I’m not sure I have enough years left to take that route.

Not that other routes go to instant fame, but I can at least, thanks to the internet, get to nearly-instant publishing. At worst, I can blog my novel. And I might. I’m still researching all the options and cooking up a plan, but at this point I’m 99% convinced that indie-author is the way to go.

But then I read on another blog: “Right now, in March of 2010, agents are essential if you want to be a full time fiction writer.” The jist of it being if you want a chance at the big bucks – enough to live on – you’ve got to sell to the big boys. That being the dinosaurs, the ones who won’t change their business practices to adapt to changing times. The ones who want to kill ebooks.

What’s a writer to do? We’re obviously in the midst of upheaval in the publishing world. Do I cling to the old ways because that’s still where most of the money is, or try to find the crest of the wave of the future and hope I can surf my way to future success?