I attended a writers’ conference this week-end. There was a opportunity in the program for me to sit down with a real, live New York City agent and get feed-back on twenty pages of my manuscript.

The agent didn’t leap up and grab me and demand to know where this manuscript has been all her life. Instead she said, after complimenting me on my strong writing, that it looked like “Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia: A Mother and Son Journey” was for a niche market. I hadn’t convinced her of the potential market in my query letter, and even though she, as an agent, knows lots of publishers, she’s not a mind reader. She doesn’t know the schizophrenia market, nor the holistic treatment side of schizophrenia treatment. She needs facts and numbers. I didn’t provide any.

I’m prepared to self-publish, but I’m not there yet, mainly because I like the idea of someone else of influence believing that there’s a market for this kind of book. The twist in my book (actually, there are several) is that I’m a mother who believes in minimal medication, if any, I’ve undergone some very unusual types of treatment with my son that aren’t on most people’s radar screen, and I believe that schizophrenia begins at home.

Please contact me if you are aware of books or websites showing facts and figures that can help me determine the book market for 1) memoir; 2) schizophrenia; 3) holistic treatments; 4) energy psychology or psychiatric literature. I need to know more than just that schizophrenia affects 1 in 100 people.