Self/EPubbing a First Novel

I think major agents who would avoid previously self-published authors are now in a minority, but they still do exist.

OpheliaRevived said:

I was wondering if it negatively impacts your chances to get an agent in the future - for a different book - if you decide to self publish or epub your "first" book.

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Not if it sells 50,000 copies; and if you're worried you can always use a pseudonym for the e-pubbed book.

Of course if they go looking for your name on the web and find a self-published ebook whose sample chapters are unreadable, then I'm sure it would impact your chances.

Not really.

What counts is the actual book that's in front of them.

With agents I don't know, but I have seen some publishers (both traditional and digital publishers) who say they won't consider stories that have ever been published. And some of them consider "publishing" to include posting it for free, anywhere. Whether or not that would keep them from looking at your second book, I don't know.

But I can't imagine that e-pubbing a first book would keep them from looking at your second book (unless the quality is sub-par). Officially, at least. However, there could always be editors and agents with a personal bias.

I'd ask a couple of agents that you're considering submitting to, and see what they say. Or, just publish your first book under a different pen name, as someone mentioned.

I'd imagine that they would have to love your book, before they took the time to google your name and find out you had an ebook previously published. I suppose if the ebook was really, really bad, or had horrible reviews attached to it, they might strongly encourage you to pull it or list it with a pseudonym in order for it to not affect sales of the new book. Otherwise, well, many agents don't think of e-books as being books, so they should mind (unless you're trying to get them to republish an e-book).

In the "old days" self-publishing would ruin the chances of that book being picked up. There are now some agents like , Noah Lukeman, the Trident Group who are actually querying self-published authors so the tide has changed on that accord. Myhusband would have never gotten a six-figure offer for his books if he had submitted first. Part of the desire for the publishers to sign him was the fact that he had done so well with ebook self-publishing to begin with.

Are we walking about self-publishing or e-publishing because, again, I have to point out they are not the same thing.

scarletpeaches said:

Are we walking about self-publishing or e-publishing because, again, I have to point out they are not the same thing.

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Thank you! I've been wondering the same thing...

scarletpeaches said:

Are we walking about self-publishing or e-publishing because, again, I have to point out they are not the same thing.

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Exactly!

OP specified that the she was considering doing both, self-publishing an ebook. I don't think any of the later discussion assumed otherwise.

I'm sure because it is in the epublishing forum they are speaking of releasing this as an ebook. It is understood that both self-publishers and traditional publisher put out ebooks. The title says self/epublishing so it looks like is the case.

Well, it did say "self publish or epub", and then go on with "Can I e-pub one book... or does a journey into this kind of publishing "steer" your career into the diy publishing direction forever?". Which indicates a confusion of the two terms.

At any rate, I'm one of those who likes to make the clear distinction. Otherwise the discussions tend to get distorted.

shadowwalker said:

Well, it did say "self publish or epub", and then go on with "Can I e-pub one book... or does a journey into this kind of publishing "steer" your career into the diy publishing direction forever?". Which indicates a confusion of the two terms.

At any rate, I'm one of those who likes to make the clear distinction. Otherwise the discussions tend to get distorted.

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I agree. I think this distinction is going to matter more as time goes on. There's a lot of little epub-publishers spinning up right now. Small presses, yeah, no/low advances, sure - but they are going to have the capacity, soon, to collectively print an *enormous* quantity of books. Creating and distributing an ebook is substantially cheaper than doing the same with a print book, so on a basis of dollars spent they will simply be able to make more books. And since the books don't get yanked from the shelves, many (not all) of the reasons print publishing had to reduce supply no longer count. As a result, I suspect we'll see the output of these sorts of small presses escalate greatly over the next couple of years.

In short, an AWFUL lot of writers are going to be publishing ebook-only novels via these small e-presses. Already started, and I think this will grow. There's a lot of writers out there who don't seem to mind paying half the profits to not have to learn how to manage ebook production themselves (and to not have to finance it!).

And those writers will experience the same problems as did the writers who signed up with all those little POD presses which proliferated a few years ago (and which still pop up, week after week).

It's easy enough to call yourself a publisher and to start putting out books; but it's another thing entirely to be a good publisher. Writers, take care.

OpheliaRevived said:

I'm sure this has been discussed.

I was wondering if it negatively impacts your chances to get an agent in the future - for a different book - if you decide to self publish or epub your "first" book. Can I e-pub one book and query another or does a journey into this kind of publishing "steer" your career into the diy publishing direction forever?

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I read an article a while ago that claimed publishers don't see stuff like a self-published eBook that sold 100 copies as any kind of threat to their operation and, if you build a big enough audience on your own, the opposite. They think "obviously this person is on to something and if we back him, we can make a lot of money at relatively low risk."

Dunno if it's true, but it makes sense to me.

I enjoyed reading everyone's advice on this thread. thanks