The fresh-faced young man sat at a table at last fall's Northwest Bookfest in Seattle, sometimes outfitted in costume as a storyteller of yore, but not altogether pleased with the number of buyers for his self-published fantasy novel. Eighteen-year-old Christopher Paolini of Paradise Valley, Mont., had been on the road hawking his book for most of the year and was used to far more buyer interest, sometimes approaching sales of 100 copies in a single day.