In the old days there was only one way to publish a book: Slave over a manuscript for months or years only to send it off to publishers and wait months until a literary scout actually got around to reading your work. If you were lucky, you received a kindly worded rejection letter and thus knew the status of your creative venture. But for the most part, emerging writers wouldn't receive a reply at all. Even if their book sparked an editor's interest, it would take a lengthy period of time before a print deal was sorted out.

Today, the rise of e-book sales is proving that readers want readily accessible works quickly and cheaply. This fact has not escaped major book sellers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Both companies allow authors to publish e-books on their sites and generate a massive percent of the revenue earned from sales. Those that want to avoid waiting around for their work to reach the public have found self-publishing to be extremely rewarding.

For up and coming writers like Andrew Galasetti, this couldn't be closer to the truth. Galasetti set out to write a novel that captured America's literary past, including issues of poverty, racism, immigration, war, domestic violence, death, and the American Dream. His book "To Breathe Free" follows a young narrator traveling to and around Manhattan as he attempts to escape from, while reliving, his family's past. Through the past, the narrator and his family members cope with being abandoned; face the choice of being the abandoner, and struggle against adversity, failure, fate and time. In the present-day, the narrator works to piece together his emotions, identity, and his future from this past.

Galasetti contacted over 100 literary agents and was close to signing with an agent when, as is common, the deal fell through. However, his dreams of being an author would not be trounced on. He found solace in the e-book world.  He told the International Business Times:

"Electronic self-publishing is only going to become more common, influential, and respectable in the very near future for a variety of reasons. The crucial reason is because independent e-publishing places the focus on the most important people in books: the readers and the writers. Readers have more choice, better access, and a lower cost. While at the same time, writers have more choice, better access, and earn the same, if not more, as they would publishing with a legacy publisher."

Sites like Create Space not only allow authors to publish their own work but they can also opt to purchase cover art and a marketing campaign expressly for them. Other authors are allowing audiences to have access to their work for free. Free-E-books.net is one of many that offers such an option. In an age were speed and conveince is eveything it seems that the e-book market is only going to grow. 

Contributed by International Business Times