Writing Thoughts

At this stage I'm almost certainly going to finish the novel I've been working on in my spare time. It will be a big fantasy novel, and while I'm subjective, I like what I've written. The question is: what do I do with it?

(EDIT: Let me make it clearer, sorry - this novel is traditional epic fantasy, not erotica.)

Showing it to patrons is a given. But beyond that, I think it's really a somewhat open question. In this post, I'm going to lay out what I see as the main options based on my research. Some of you may have other insights, or you can just give your opinion about what seems best or what you'd enjoy most. It's fine if you're not into books, honest reactions are always valued.

Short version of my research into publishing: everything sucks for everyone.

I've done some self-publishing before with erotica, but things have gotten worst since I last looked into it. The top of the charts is still plagued with scammers and Amazon is still a capricious tyrant, but conditions have grown more intense. Traditional publishing has gotten worse too, publishers giving new authors terrible contracts and abandoning them if they don't become hits. It's rough being a writer.

Fortunately, thanks to the foundation I've built with all of you, I'm not coming to this with nothing. ^-^ Amazon can't wipe out my livelihood and I could negotiate with a traditional publisher from a position of relative strength.

Having said that, I see three different paths for releasing this novel and I'm unsure which would be best:

1) Traditional Publishing: The main disadvantage is having to jump through all the hoops to get there (also much lower profit per book, but money is not my main motivator at this stage). Advantages are potentially substantial built-in marketing and not having to do a ton of miscellaneous tasks that would eat up my time.

2) Ebook Publishing: No barriers to entry, higher returns, and complete control, but fewer advantages. My biggest concern here is that publishing a single long book still seems to be suicide in the current market - you make all your sales off series and referrals from other books. 

3) Web Serial: One chapter of the book at a time. Has the advantage of gaining attention via serialization, but it's throwing my work into the void with no monetary return.

As you may see from my listing of advantages/disadvantages, I am leaning toward trying traditional publishing first. I already spend more time than I'd like doing business stuff for my games, I don't want to do it for books as well. Having said that, I'd still need to spend time contacting agents, which can be a frustrating process. -_- So I'm really open to different thoughts if anyone has them.

Another thing to consider is hybrid authors. It's possible to go from #2 to #1, which might be easier than trying for agents/publishers but involves all the work of #2. I've also seen people go from #3 to #2, carrying their audience with them. Not sure of a #3 to #1 example. There are also people who adamantly say #2 is better than #1, and #3 is basically what I'm already doing with games.

I think that's enough for now. I have other thoughts and ideas, and at some point I will make another post about why I'm considering investing more time into writing. For now, I wanted to update people and get general reactions on my thoughts so far.