I’ve been publishing horror and fantasy books in the indie arena for a little over ten years. I’ve also done some work-for-hire in game-universe fiction. The publishers I’ve worked with have all been legit, paying markets, but mostly small. None of them have big sales numbers. And neither do I.
My first few books taught me the hard way that you can’t expect the publisher to do the work of selling your book for you. Or at least, I thought I’d learned that lesson. For the last two novels I put out, I tried to follow all the advice I’d picked up over the years. I hired a publicist and committed a few thousand dollars out-of-pocket for PR. I got reviews, I bought ads, etc. Initially I felt good about my investment, as I got plenty of good reviews and even got named to one Top 10 of 2017 list. But at the end of the day, neither book sold well. I spent way more than I made off of a few small advances and some royalties.
I may be wrong here, but it’s beginning to feel like the indie road goes only so far. And it seems like the only way into the bigger realm of large publishing houses is by having an agent. I know a publisher won’t do it all for you, but after having tried to do it almost all myself, I know that everything I can possibly spend on marketing barely gets me on the map. Without a bigger publisher there may never be any sales numbers, or any money.
So now I’m faced with a choice: I have a new manuscript I’m shopping, professionally edited and proofed. Problem is, I’ve had zero luck getting even a nibble from an agent. I can’t decide if I should go ahead and publish this with the same small publisher I’ve been working with lately, knowing that I’ll end up spending thousands of dollars more in out-of-pocket PR and marketing, or hold off for a while, and keep querying agents until I’ve (theoretically) exhausted every possible avenue. By that point however, another year or two (or more) might have gone by during which time I’m not putting out any material.
Is it best to keep cranking along, putting my work out there, or to take a step back at this point and hold off until I’ve done everything possible to try to find some doorway into that larger world of agents and big publishers?
For anyone who made it to the end of this admittedly long post…thank you…I’m brand new here and any advice or thoughts you might have on this, I’m open to hearing it all.
My first few books taught me the hard way that you can’t expect the publisher to do the work of selling your book for you. Or at least, I thought I’d learned that lesson. For the last two novels I put out, I tried to follow all the advice I’d picked up over the years. I hired a publicist and committed a few thousand dollars out-of-pocket for PR. I got reviews, I bought ads, etc. Initially I felt good about my investment, as I got plenty of good reviews and even got named to one Top 10 of 2017 list. But at the end of the day, neither book sold well. I spent way more than I made off of a few small advances and some royalties.
I may be wrong here, but it’s beginning to feel like the indie road goes only so far. And it seems like the only way into the bigger realm of large publishing houses is by having an agent. I know a publisher won’t do it all for you, but after having tried to do it almost all myself, I know that everything I can possibly spend on marketing barely gets me on the map. Without a bigger publisher there may never be any sales numbers, or any money.
So now I’m faced with a choice: I have a new manuscript I’m shopping, professionally edited and proofed. Problem is, I’ve had zero luck getting even a nibble from an agent. I can’t decide if I should go ahead and publish this with the same small publisher I’ve been working with lately, knowing that I’ll end up spending thousands of dollars more in out-of-pocket PR and marketing, or hold off for a while, and keep querying agents until I’ve (theoretically) exhausted every possible avenue. By that point however, another year or two (or more) might have gone by during which time I’m not putting out any material.
Is it best to keep cranking along, putting my work out there, or to take a step back at this point and hold off until I’ve done everything possible to try to find some doorway into that larger world of agents and big publishers?
For anyone who made it to the end of this admittedly long post…thank you…I’m brand new here and any advice or thoughts you might have on this, I’m open to hearing it all.