Self publishing and finding an agent later...

JFBookman said:

Again, this relates mostly to non-fiction, but at a recent BAIPA meeting (Bay Area Independent Publishers Association) Alan Rinzler, head of Jossey-Bass, said that he thought about 5% of self-published books were being acquired by traditional houses. (BTW I assume he meant "properly self-published" books, i.e. edited, designed, produced professionally.).

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I don't know what the acceptance rates are for non-fiction at commercial houses, but for fiction (about which the OP was inquiring), it's about 2-3% of manuscripts submitted. For the sake of ease, let's split the difference and say 2.5%. Then consider that 90% of what's submitted is completely unpublishable dross, and another 5% is good but either not quite good enough or not right for the targeted publisher.

Of the remaining 5%, half of it gets accepted. That's 50% of the work that's well-written, well-edited, and properly targeted (which I'd equate to '"properly self-published" books, i.e. edited, designed, produced professionally').

So if Mr Rinzler's numbers are correct, this shows that, if you want a commercial contract, you still have a substantially better chance (50% vs 5%) of getting one by submitting well-written, well-edited, properly targeted fiction to commercial publishers, not self-publishing it, even properly.

For those who aren't interested in commercial contracts, this is, of course, meaningless.

Terie said:

I don't know what the acceptance rates are for non-fiction at commercial houses, but for fiction (about which the OP was inquiring), it's about 2-3% of manuscripts submitted.

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Really? That seems a little optimistic to me.

I know that reputable agents accept way less than 1% of the work submitted for representation, and not all represented work gets published. The best way to get your novel published is through an agent, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say a direct, unsolicited submission to an editor (slush pile) has an almost impossible shot of getting published by that house.

I'd be jumping for joy if I had a 2-3% shot at a submission to a commercial house.

Art Edwards said:

Really? That seems a little optimistic to me.

I know that reputable agents accept way less than 1% of the work submitted for representation, and not all represented work gets published. The best way to get your novel published is through an agent, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say a direct, unsolicited submission to an editor (slush pile) has an almost impossible shot of getting published by that house.

I'd be jumping for joy if I had a 2-3% shot at a submission to a commercial house.

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The 2-3% number is what I hear all over the place, including directly from editors at conferences and such. Also, I got a four-book deal with a mid-sized publisher off the slush pile. Happens all the time.

Terie said:

I don't know what the acceptance rates are for non-fiction at commercial houses

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I think it's really difficult to get any numbers that would be the same between acceptance of fiction and nonfiction. They really seem to exist in two different worlds, and the accepted wisdom is that nonfiction is much easier to sell than fiction.

No matter how you cut it, getting the deal isn't easy or a high-percentage endeavor. Glad to hear you "slushed to success" though, at least someone is reading the pile, and that's a good thing.

When I was publishing, I did put one book into print we just fell in love with that was unsolicited. It never sold that well, but I never regretted it either.