Oh yes, after what Sammie went through, I'll never go through them to publish any of my work. Rather stab myself in the foot.

I've been curious about self publishing, online especially. It's a venue I've thought about using for some of my graphic novel work. The marketing would be up to the author (and any friends/family of the author that are inclined to help promote), but if one can find decent resources, it could be a decent venue. There are some sites which give free samples of fiction, and charge a fee to read the rest. I'm not sure where they are (bookmarked on my old computer, which crashed), but they may be worth looking into. There are also several e-zines which would publish original short or serial fiction. Google is quite useful for writers ;) Print publishers, though, I don't really know much about, except evidently what to avoid...lol...