I looked on your website. Who is your agent? Does he/she have a track record of selling to major publishers (both Big Five and indies)? Because if he/she doesn’t have that track record, and you don’t get that upward movement, it seems like another lateral movement.
Getting an agent isn’t a victory by itself. Getting an agent who can sell your book is. There are dozens of well-meaning but ineffectual people who hang a shingle and call themselves an “agent.” They are no more likely to sell a book than anybody else.
I understand the need for validation, and I can understand what might be appealing about an offer from a publisher--any publisher--but it's important to be realistic about what that offer represents. Folks throw around terms like -- "opportunity" or "foot in the door" without taking the time to realize, objectively, what opportunity is being offered, or which door they're getting a foot into. You can't sacrifice truth for enthusiasm's sake.
This is insightful here. If you don't know what you're doing, you can easily give a gem away to a small publisher that will only pay you pennies. Why? Just because some agents rejected it? However many agents you sent to? You start high then go down the list. There are so many writers out there that totally forget about the mid-sized publishers, that are STILL good enough to get you into brick and mortar places and an advance.
Hey, and if you're stuck with an agent that also does crap? (this is generally speaking here) Often times that agent will sell you on the idea of placing it with a publisher that you could have done yourself. I see poor authors with poor agents all the time, then poor publishers too? That madness had to stop for me. I am speaking for my own experience here and Eternal and Solstice didn't do it for me. So I moved on, with my work and all. GOT an agent, and Jesus, still hada problem. My first agent was sweet, but she lost interest in 6 months and cut me loose. My second agent was absolutely horrible, I will stand by the fact of what I said on Sheri Williams and that shitty-ass site of hers. NOT saying those authors are shitty. I'm saying Sheri put them with a publisher that they could have done themselves. And they still have to pay her 15%. Sheri didn't even give those poor authors the right attention to the right publishers because she doesn't have the right connections. A bad agent is worse than no agent at all. But a bad agent that places you with a bad publisher? God, in heaven, that writer will never want to write again.
Get this, now Sheri's running a publishing company? Yeah, talk about conflict of interest. So yeah, I would have to agree on Round Two's post in that this is a poor move. And you'll only stay in that poor move until you move on and want better. And OMG, there is better out there. You (as the general audience here) need to believe in your work that much to search far and wide and a good reputable fit. Not take what you can get. Cause you won't take it for long afterwards. Unless you don't care on making money.
I totally burned out two books on this blazing trail of errors and through out two kids books of mine, why? I wanted that validation damnit. Well I got it. Was I expecting all of what that publisher promised? Of course. Did I get everything I wanted out of those publishers? Of course not. Why? I didn't do my research.
But I wanted more in a publisher. And I got more in a publisher. But it wasn't from Eternal or Solstice doing that. It was from me submitting to a better place and striving to do much better.