After doing some rigorous editing, Kenneth and Talita Paolini, who had experience self-publishing educational books, decided to publish Eragon on their own in 2002. They then spent a year traveling the country with their son, doggedly promoting it at schools, libraries and grocery stores. Even Christopher's younger sister, Angela, helped out.

The Paolinis sold more than 10,000 copies of the book before it came to the attention of author Carl Hiassen, whose stepson read it while vacationing in Montana. Hiassen passed it on to his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, which published Eragon in 2003. It has gone on to sell 2.5 million copies in North America alone and is available in 38 countries.

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"Eragon is a coming-of-age story and this whole process of publishing and writing books has been, in a lot of ways, my own coming-of-age story," he says. "I had to leave home and go out into the world. And while I didn't have to get involved in any sword battles, I was placed under a certain amount of pressure." Make that a great deal of pressure. During the year his family spent promoting the book on the road, his parents had no other income. Eragon, essentially, was their meal ticket.

"I was doing three or four presentations a day, and it was a do-or-die sort of thing," Paolini recalls. "It makes for a great story after the fact, but when you're living through it, it's incredibly nerve-racking. I never want to be in that position again. There was just too much at stake."