Never Did Get An Agent, But Sold My Novel Anyway

Remember this catastrophe of agent rejections, mice? Well, it never got any better.  In fact, my novel got published because I entered it into a small press first novel contest. It didn't even win, you know, but it did get chosen as one of the four books the teeny tiny press puts out there in the world.  The publisher says, "Basically because this deserves to be a book." And that's that. Of course I do have an agent for the more commercial enterprise of mine, but that book is still being written. Why is it taking so long to get it right, the commercial book? I don't know. Maybe that's just not the kind of Girlie Man I am.