Agents
CaelinPaul said:
Well I went on-line and found a list of a whole bunch of publishers in the fantasy genre. Many were very clear that they were not accepting unsolicited manuscripts. So I sent to a handful of publishers who suggested they were looking at unsolicited manuscripts. I guess I have to get a thicker skin because as soon as the first few rejection letters came in I lost my nerve and decided to go the self-publishing route. The problem is, now people are reading my book and loving it so much that they can't put it down once they start. As for agents, had no clue how to pursue an agent or even that an author needed one. Plus, agents sound expensive
Agents aren't expensive. Agents are free, and agents make you money, not cost you money. You approach an agent the same way you approach a publisher. You send the a query letter.
I know this isn;t what many writers want to hear, but to paraphrase Cussler, and a couple of editors I know who same the same thing, "Getting published is easy. The hard part is writing something that's publishable."
If what you write isn;t very good, then getting it published is nearly impossible. If what you write is good, then finding an agent and a publisher is the easiest thing in the world. And the better what you write is, the easier it is to find an agent or a publisher.
And if this was your first novel, why should it be good enough to publish? First efforts in any field, in any profession, are usuualy well below professional standards.
And self-publishing doesn't improve quality. When publishers keep saying no, well, this is a very good sign that self-publishing isn't going to help in any way. Never believe readers. I've yet to see a self-published novel, no matter how bad it was, wherefore the writer didn't say everyone who reads it loves it.
This isn't a put down of your novel. Yours may be great. But it may not be.
At any rate, when small publishers who don;t demand an agent keep turning down your novel, there's almost certain a serious problem with your novel. And the way to get a good publisher is to first get a good agent. This is just how it works. And agents cost nothing. Zero.
Once you self-publish a book, about the only way to ever make that book look good to a commercial publisher again is to sell a LOT of copies on your own. At Victoria says at least 5,000 copies in the first six months to a year. I'd also say at least that many, and maybe twice that many.
By self-publishing, you've put the book on the market, and it's going to be a very tough sell unless it does very well in the market.
The idea is to write a second and a third and fourth and a fifth novel. Odds are, it will take you more than one novel to learn how to write well enough, and to learn what makes a book publishable and marketable. Many, many writers spend time trying to get a first effort to sell, and spend even more time self-publishing and self-distributing, and self-marketing a first novel when that time would be far better spent writing more novels and learning how agants and publishers work.
Need certain number of posts??