Still querry agents if self pubbed?

It is possible, but generally considered much more difficult to query books that have been self-published. A number of agents simply won't consider something already published. Some that will consider them will only look if your self-published work has a metric ton of sales (see: The Martian) and has earned the need to sell other rights. Others will look no matter, but they're a smaller subset. So, basically, you can try, it can work, but it's going to be an even more difficult uphill climb than just writing and querying a new book would be.

kimber9826 said:

Can we still try to secure a agent if the book is already self published as an ebook? I would assume so to help the author sell all the rights to book as it's only utilizing one path (ebook sales). Any insight would be helpful or past success stories.

Thanks

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1. You can always try. That's not sarcasm; you might send a query and find someone who's looking for exactly what you've got to offer.

2. "We" implies more than one author, which on a debut book can complicate things a little. It means two contracts and a royalty split, but not a deal-breaker AFAIK.

3. What you're wanting to sell is, after a fashion, used goods. What you're calling only one path is one of, if not the main, source of income for books (depending on genre). You've also burned through something called first rights, which means the first right of publication. (also not necessarily a deal-breaker anymore, but it used to be)

4. You're going to have to do an analysis of your book and its prospects for yourself. Is your book successful (meaning 10's of thousands, or more, sold)? If so, have you exhausted the potential market for this book? What's the enticement for an agent to take it on? Is your book marginally successful, or even not selling at all? If so, is it of publishable quality? Could you do some substantial edits that would not only improve the novel, but give it new life as a new book, which you could then submit without strings?

5. Remember that it takes at least a year, more like 2, to publish a novel commercially. You can't have your ebook online for all that time where people who might hear about your upcoming novel can go ahead and get their hands on it for self-published ebook prices. You'd be undercutting your own publisher, if one took the project on.

kimber9826 said:

Can we still try to secure a agent if the book is already self published as an ebook? I would assume so to help the author sell all the rights to book as it's only utilizing one path (ebook sales). Any insight would be helpful or past success stories.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Basically, what Maggie said.

A lot of publishers aren't interested in something that's been published, thus agents aren't interested either, as it's a harder sell for them. There often needs to be a reason, like a lot of sales (again, as Maggie says a lot of sales in this world is in the high tens of thousands at least), but that can work against you as well, as publishers might think it's played out. Sometimes agents will overlook that something has been published, or not care, but many won't be interested.

I have nothing to add to what the others have said, but that typo in the thread's title is making my eye twitch every time it pops up on the new activity feed.

Me: