JanDarby said:
Are we talking about fiction or non-fiction?
The business plan of selling a lot of copies of fiction as a means of interesting larger publishers or agents has seldom succeeded, and it would seem premature to go that route if the manuscript hasn't at least been sent out to garner a few rejections from the more traditional route and perhaps run past a critique group or two.JD
I agree that non-fiction is much more likely to do better via self-publishing, but I'm not so sure that POD (as opposed to conventional self-publishing) is necessarily a bad choice for fiction, particularly if you are a writer like me who detests the whole demeaning business of writing an infinite number of query letters (which I have done and for which I have little talent,) to a great host of agents who reply by form letter that they do not want even to see a synopsis (or do not want new clients, or that what I write--based on reading, or not reading--or having an assistant read, a one-page synopsis) or that my work is "not for them."
I have tried that route and the lack of positive results means either that what I write is crap or the conventional system does not work for me. Rather than continue year after year the same fruitless attempts to get published, I've finally decided that the POD route is better, at least for me.
I know that what I write is not crap. Only one of the many agents I have queried has actually seen a manuscript from me and I have no confidence that she actually read more than the first page, and all she had to say was "not for me." I know what I write is better than most of what actually gets into print going the conventional route. If I didn't think so, I'd junk the word processor and take up finger painting.
At least with POD I have a book in hand to share with my friends and to send to POD and small press competitions. Sure, turning a POD into a best seller is a very long shot; like winning the lottery or getting hit by lightning, but from my experience the needle-in-a-haystack business of finding an agent who will sell my manuscript to a big-name publisher is also a very long shot and there's no actual book to show for it after years of effort.
Wishing for something is to depend on luck, but the definition of "hope" is the expectation of success. Since POD means that some people, no matter how few, will actually read my work, it offers me more reason to hope than does conventional publishing. Conventional publishing seems to me to be merely wishing for success since unless and until a receptive agent happens upon my work no one will ever read it.