Question about self-publishing and traditional published

[RavenRum]

Hey everyone, I'm a new member from Australia who's written a sci-fi YA novel at 130k of words.
I've been trying to get publishers and agents to take on my novels, but all in the months I've submitted my queries I haven't even received a request for a partial, even though I was close at one point.

Anyway, this is my question: if I want to self-publish to a site such as Createspace or smash words, where you hold all the rights, will I be able to then submit to traditional publishers/agents? I read somewhere that once you self-publish they don't want to hear from you, but this is not traditional self-publishing - this is amazon print on demand and eBooks where I hold the rights. I just wanted to confirm this.

Also, can I submit a part of my novel to a maganize and then publish it later on?

Thanks for the answers

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's still self-publishing, RavenRum, with all the advantages (you get to decide everything) and disadvantages (you have to do everything). Unless you are very, very good at promoting your own work and the book just happens to be exactly what readers are looking for at that particular moment in time (and almost always, but not absolutely always, an agent would have recognized that and picked it up), the number of copies you sell will be in the hundreds, not the thousands, certainly not the tens of thousands.

And traditional publishers are not interested in reprinting self-published books unless they are already huge hits with plenty of buzz. Why? Because they don't want books with a poor sales record that have probably already sold all the copies they ever will. (Bookstores will shy away from ordering copies.) Poor numbers may make them wary of publishing anything of yours. If you are lucky enough and hardworking enough to sell a few thousand copies of your self-published book, publishers may be interested in seeing something new from you -- figuring that if you could sell that many books on your own, you could do much better with them behind your next book from the start.

So it depends on what you want and how hard you are willing to work (and at what) whether you should go ahead and self-publish, or continue to seek a contract with a traditional publishing house. If you'd rather write than market your work, then it's time to take a good hard look at what you have and ask if it is absolutely the best it can be. Or do you have an idea for a new book or series and you feel that what you have learned writing the first one will make the next one even better? Then keep writing. (Knowing that if you do sell something to a publisher, there will still be a certain amount of self-promotion ahead of you, but you'll have a sales and marketing department to do the heavy lifting.)

If you know that you have a talent for sales and marketing and enjoy doing it, and you really want to see this book published, then self-publishing may be the best choice.

 

[RavenRum]

Hmm..I see what you mean, but I doubt that agents/publishers will search my work out to see if I've submitted something and how much it's sold. Still, I don't want to be naive and they may do so. I always imagined that agents would be glad to see someone take the initiative and self-publish.

I know a lot of people with connections (I'm a uni student) but I'd rather go the traditional route, and I'm not going to travel the country promoting my novel like Paolini did with Eragon. That was also self published and got taken on.

It's a tricky one :/

 

[MattC]

Hmm..I see what you mean, but I doubt that agents/publishers will search my work out to see if I've submitted something and how much it's sold. Still, I don't want to be naive and they may do so. I always imagined that agents would be glad to see someone take the initiative and self-publish.

I know a lot of people with connections (I'm a uni student) but I'd rather go the traditional route, and I'm not going to travel the country promoting my novel like Paolini did with Eragon. That was also self published and got taken on.

It's a tricky one :/

Hi Ravenrum, and welcome to the group!

I agree with Teresa on this. The number of self-published works that are picked up by a traditional publisher compared to the number of titles self-published is ridiculously low. Publishing is a numbers game. An agent or publisher taking on a book that has been published elsewhere regardless of being traditionally published or self-published will always ask you how many you've sold, sometimes in relation to the publicity you've generated. It's their business to.
Selling books is hard, harder still when you don't have a publishing and publicity department behind you. Your sales record when published is the thing that will make or kill your career in traditional publishing in most cases, so you can see where I am going.

I'd say by all means consider self-publishing but if you want this book traditionally published exhaust all agent/publisher opportunities first. It is true that a saint's patience is nothing compared to a writer waiting for a letter from an agent/publisher but that patience can pay off (it did for me and many others).

If I had self-published my first book instead I very much doubt I would have been published by a major. I've since self-published that book after it exhausted its print-runs and to regain creative control over it; so don't get me wrong, self-publishing is a great thing, but done at the right time.

 

[Boneman]

RavenRum, welcome to the chrons. Can I ask you a really silly question? Have you had your book edited/critiqued/rewritten/reedited/recritiqued, (and I don't mean by mum and close friends)and polished to the point it's the best it's ever going to be? Because if it's not even getting a whiff of interest from agents and publishers it can suggest (and I'm not suggesting that is the case) it's not good enough, otherwise they'd surely respond. Self-publishing won't make it a better book, it just gives you the control of everything.

I fear you may not have given it enough time - you say you've been trying for months, but that is hardly any time at all, believe me. (Patrick Rothfuss took 14 years...)

Good luck with whatever you do.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I'd rather go the traditional route

Chances are you'll need a crit group to provide feedback and then a freelance editor to at least go through your first chapters to set you on the right path.

Once you reach 30 posts, try posting a short sample in the Critiques section - I assure you any problems will be blatant in the first 500 words.

Hopefully that will help for a start. And welcome to chronicles.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I always imagined that agents would be glad to see someone take the initiative and self-publish.

If by initiative, you mean publish the book so that it looks professional (paying a copy-editor to get rid of all the spelling and grammatical errors, paying an artist -- or at least coaxing one, if you know someone who is really good -- to provide professional looking cover art) and then going out and tirelessly promoting the book so that you come to them with an already established fan base ... maybe.

If you mean spending a couple of hours formatting the book for Amazon and Smashwords, putting it up with all the errors still in place, and using amateurish looking cover art (I don't say that this is what you would do, because I don't know you, but it's what the vast majority of self-published writers do) ... then no.

An agent won't make any money from a self-published book, so your initiative won't benefit him or her unless you create a large fan base eager to buy the next (traditionally published) book.

I doubt that agents/publishers will search my work out to see if I've submitted something and how much it's sold.

They would know that you had already published the book yourself because you would tell them. Because you are a) an honest person who wouldn't want to go into a business relationship deceiving the other party, and b) if you let them think the book hadn't been published before and they found out -- as they very well might without searching it out, because in the SFF community everybody knows just about everybody else, which eventually leads to them knowing just about everything -- they would never want to work with you again.

So, unless you do the work to make the book a big hit, there is absolutely no upside as far as agents and editors are concerned.

If you want to end up traditionally published, it's best to begin as you mean to go on -- write a book that is so incredibly good (see Brian's suggestions of how to go about that, although the paid editor might not be necessary) that an agent or an editor somewhere can't wait to sign you up. And as Boneman suggests, once you start sending it out, stick with it.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A couple of things stood out to me - publishers would not know about the book. They will. They'll google you and your world and they'll find it. It's, apparently, number three in the list of things agents do if they are interested in - the one before they phone and offer you representation - check you out online. (this is based on a twitter conversation between a few of them, so feel free to take a pinch of salt. But when a writer I know got signed recently, the agent started following her on twitter a few weeks before, and most agents follow their clients and what not.)

Having said that, all the agents I've seen asked about this say they have no problem with previously self -pubbed authors approaching them with subsequent books, but they won't be interested in the book itself unless it's done a 50 shades...

I also know if I'd have self-pubbed when I got here two years ago, sure I had the polished, reviewed, edited book I'd have regretted it. Because it needed so much work (still does) and if you've come up with a great story, it's worth checking if it is ready?

 

[Tirellan]

No-one seems to have addressed the question about selling part of the novel as a standalone story to a magazine, so I will.
Yes, do it if you can. You are selling a different set of rights. There is a long tradition of authors doing this.
This can only help your cause if you can sell the story to a good magazine (check out Ralan.com for markets). I emphasise good, because it is pretty much as tough to sell a short story to the pro-level mags as it is to catch an agent's interest.

 

[Glitch]

... all the agents I've seen asked about this say they have no problem with previously self -pubbed authors approaching them with subsequent books ...

I assume the number of sales the self published work has sold may influence their decision.

If you do self publish and then seek representation, I'd definitely be up front about it. You can put a positive spin on it. Things like how much effort you have put into marketing and how you feel your time would be better spent writing etc....

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I assume the number of sales the self published work has sold may influence their decision.

Yes, it could, because it will influence booksellers, who can check the numbers on Amazon.

 

[allmywires]

Hiya RavenRum,

Fellow uni student and fed-up wannabe traditionally published person here

I think really, as Boneman said, the absolute first thing you need to do is get as MUCH feedback as you can. I've been there, with my baby, freshly finished and perfect*, before giving it to people and having every flaw picked out (trust me, there are always flaws...) and now I look at my first version and wonder why I ever thought it was good enough to submit to agents. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still getting a stream of rejections, but I'm proud of my work and don't cringe at absolutely every sentence any more.

To echo Teresa, as well, there's a reason self-publishing has a bad rep and should be carefully considered. It's probably the way I'm going to go, but I'm waiting until the summer so I can maximise my marketing time and I'm toying with doing so under a pseudonym so I can still try and get published with my other future projects (because if nothing else I'm a masochist...) A lot of people, and I'm absolutely not saying you're one because you sound exactly like me!, just finish something, whack it straight on Amazon without proofing or formatting or even getting decent cover work, and it makes everyone look bad because even good self-pubbed stuff gets tarred with the same brush. Also, look at the genres that excel in self-publishing: romance, romance, more romance. I wouldn't dare publish any general 'fiction' (not so sure about genre fiction, anyone help me out?) because it would probably get lost straight in the murky outwaters of the Kindle Store - at least with romance you've got the 'sex sells' part to spur you on. Because, trust me, people are willing to forgive a lot of basic storytelling etiquette if people are getting sweaty and nekkid at some point.

Anyway. I'm in no way an experienced person here but I thought I'd share my thoughts as we're kind of in the same situation. Best of luck with it all.

 

[ZombieWife]

If you haven't gotten a request for a partial (or full), then your issue might be the query letter, not the book itself. If you're not getting requests for the manuscript at all, then they're obviously not judging you on the quality of the book because they haven't seen it. The advice I got from an agent pal was: "Submit 10 queries. If you don't get a hit, revise the query letter. Send out 10 more."

Consider having the query letter critiqued.