Sherri,
What about going the AuthorHouse route or Lulu? Just because it isn't right for me doesn't mean it wouldn't be for you. You are retiring so you will have more time for chasing and promoting than I do. The initial investment, from what I'm hearing here anyway, is considerable less than what you were ready to spend at Tate. By the way, It sounds like steering clear of them was a good move. You had problems with Magellan didn't you?

I don't know anything about small presses either. (only the micro presses like mine I'm not that familiar with agents yet. I can only tell you the marketing piece is a lot of work, but you already know that. I've spent my whole morning sending press releases to newspapers, most of which will probably ignore it. I do have a local daily paper that is going to do a feature on my and my book in May and a local weekly that covers several communities that will run the release, but the others are a shot in the dark. I do better through word of mouth and carrying the books around and showing them to people. Also, the bookmarks and magnets are good.

Good luck.
Louisa