I was unexpectedly laid off last year, in February. It was two months before I was working again. I spent a significant amount of that time writing and studying the writing world as it exists today. As I took note of the things many agents look for in signing new clients for traditional publishing, I noticed that they were almost identical to the things needed to be successful in self-publishing. It used to be that there was an amateur stigma to self-publishing, that people w