Self-publishing before going abroad

No idea why you'd think that self-pubbing a novel would help you sell the others in the series. That doesn't make any sense at all.

You'll almost certainly lose money on the deal if you self-publish. AFAIK, for the US market, you'd have to sell something like 5,000 copies and convince a publisher that the core audience hasn't been used up before they'd consider re-publishing a self-pubbed novel.

Have you tried contacting agents in the UK or in the US?

efreysson said:

Did I ask a stupid question here? My hope is that self-publishing a book here in Iceland and hopefully getting good reviews might give me a better position to get the attention of English-speaking publishers.
A "Look, people like my stuff and are willing to pay money for it," kind of thing

Or am I missing something?

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Uh, yes. Go read Cyia's original reply.

Normal answer is that it takes a lot of self published sales to make an impression.

However, you're an unusual circumstance. First is I think it was Jennifer Laughran in her thread here who in response to a question said it's hard for a non-American to get accepted bu American publishers. I think that's likely to be true and that you need a super query to make it work. It surprises me how often I can tell with a query whether the author is American and my guess is that non-American writers have a much harder time hooking Americans. Even the British can have problems.

Second is I can't decide whether you're planning on publishing this in English or Icelandic. If in English, normal rules apply, as it's available on Amazon and places like that. But if this is published in Icelandic, and does really well in that market, I can see some potential of a self published book being of interest to an agent.

For example, if you self-publish and get on the top ten list for Icelandic fiction, and you have a good solid query, you might be able to generate some results.

Bottom line, this answer is more a W.A.G. than a S.W.A.G. (Wild Ass Guess vs. Scientific Wild Ass Guess). You might contact Victoria (victoriastrauss) and see if she can give you some insight, but I'm going to guess she's going to be reaching, as well.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

efreysson said:

Did I ask a stupid question here? My hope is that self-publishing a book here in Iceland and hopefully getting good reviews might give me a better position to get the attention of English-speaking publishers.
A "Look, people like my stuff and are willing to pay money for it," kind of thing

Or am I missing something?

Click to expand...

It's not a stupid question. Unfortunately, it's not a simple one, either.

I'm no lawyer, but from what I know:

Even if you publish it in your native country/language, you've still burned 1st rights. You'll still have "foreign" rights that you can sell to an American or British publisher (no idea if they'd do the translation or you would, though), but the original book would still have to have stellar numbers to make someone want to import it.

Always ask yourself:

1) What are my goals?

2) How will I know whether I've achieved my goals?

3) What is the best way to reach my goals?

If you can answer all three, you're well ahead.

James D. Macdonald said:

If you can answer all three, you're well ahead.

Click to expand...

Just remember also Nietzsche's dictum (paraphrased): When you see someone running ahead of the pack, he could be a leader, a rebel, or a fugitive.

It occurs to me that he could also just be lost.

caw

He will only burn first Icelandic language rights.
First English language rights would still be available.

Alright, I'm someone who doesn't really know much personally, but who has read a lot on this topic, and typically from what I've seen, it's very difficult to get interest in a self-published book in general. I know in America there are often biases against them because many are assumed to be of lower quality than those published via the normal means. That may not be fair, and a lot of high-quality books have been self-published, but if it's a situation where someone couldn't get published and then did it on their own, it generally takes a very high number of copies sold (thousands) to make an impression. I don't remember the average number sold off the top of my head for self-published books, but it's much less.

It's very rare to get picked up this way. Unfortunately, America isn't exactly big on picking up foreign things in general. That sucks and it's unfair and completely biased, but it's also true. Yes, there are a lot of foreign books out there on the market, but in general it would have to make a really good showing in the native language to even tempt an American publisher to do a translation.

So the odds are kind of stacked double high for you. If you printed in Icelandic through a traditional publisher, you'd still probably have to be a bestseller to be printed in English. Self-publishing only makes it even more difficult to get noticed and could potentially turn off publishers to later books.

So uhh....my mildly educated yet inexperienced advice would be this. First off, please don't be offended by this, but have you had others read through your work for you and offer critiques? Perhaps had people read through your query letter to find out if there is a problem with that? It could be that the book itself could still use some improvement, or that the book is great but the letter you're subbing with isn't effective enough.

I would in general advise against self-publishing if the goal is to use that as a springboard. It very, very rarely works, and most agent blogs have addressed this topic if you go check it out.

Your English is very good, and you might actually have a better chance submitting an English translation in general. You don't have to call it a translation, just sub it as a normal work. The thing is, you would have to show immaculate English to make it work, but I think you could do this. If you can't get it published in Icelandic, then work on your translation into English, then have a native speaker go through it and check the entire thing. I am sure that there are people on here who would be willing to help, even if it was just pieces at a time. I would, anyway. Then, I would consider just subbing straight to US agents once you have that done. I read once that an agent is typically impressed by a foreigner with a high command of English, so even if it's hard in general, it could also make you stand out as more impressive than average.

Of course, more experienced people can offer better advice, but those are my two cents.