A rocky path

Books and Movies 2006 | Some books from self-publishing companies showcase vanity, but others contend for wider distribution | Susan Olasky

Frustrated novelists often self-publish their first books, hoping a reviewer or commercial publisher will notice them—and that's what's happened to Melanie Jeschke (below), a pastor's wife and homeschooling mom.

Mrs. Jeschke majored in English literature in college and thought of writing, but she produced babies—nine—rather than books. In 1998, after a trip to Oxford for the centenary celebration of C.S. Lewis' birth, and with her youngest child ready to start formal homeschooling, she started writing travel articles for a local newspaper.

Mrs. Jeschke had a second chance to visit Oxford when her eldest daughter went there to study and her church, King's Chapel in Fairfax, Va., sent the Jeschkes to England as a pastoral appreciation gift. When they returned, Tom Freiling, a fellow church member who owns a business for self-publishers, Xulon Press, asked her to consider writing a novel about Lewis. He promised either to find a standard publisher to put it out, or to pay to publish it himself.