Self-pubbed and regret it. Can I still query??

Monnrella

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Hey guys,

I gave up on the dream of representation and self-published my novel last December. I'm not against self-pub at all or anything, but it's just not the path I ever wanted to take with this book. I haven't had a ton of sales -- I've barely promoted it -- but I think it's a really good book and I've really come to regret self-pubbing over time. Is it still possible to query it, or have I definitively shot myself in the foot? I worked on this book for nearly two decades. I hate that I gave up the dream I've had since I was a little kid. :(

Thank you so much for any help and advice you can offer!
~Monnrella
 

EvilPenguin

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I am not an expert on this situation, but from what I've heard and seen, it is very unlikely that an agent will want to represent a book that you've already self-published. Something to do with the first rights publication thing. And even if an agent will represent you, then it's even less likely that a publishing house will want to take on something that's already been in print. That is, unless that book has been a major success and the agent and publisher know they can still make money on it.

That being said, you can definitely still give it a try, but you'll need to be honest that you self-published the book already.

I know it sucks when things don't go the way you've planned, especially on something you've dedicated a lot of time on, but have you considered moving on to a new book? Try writing something fresh and seek traditional publication with that? (I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I've learned the hard way that sometimes you just have to let a story go and move on to a new one.)
 

cornflake

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Hey guys,

I gave up on the dream of representation and self-published my novel last December. I'm not against self-pub at all or anything, but it's just not the path I ever wanted to take with this book. I haven't had a ton of sales -- I've barely promoted it -- but I think it's a really good book and I've really come to regret self-pubbing over time. Is it still possible to query it, or have I definitively shot myself in the foot? I worked on this book for nearly two decades. I hate that I gave up the dream I've had since I was a little kid. :(

Thank you so much for any help and advice you can offer!
~Monnrella

You can still query, it's just a longer shot that someone will be interested. It hasn't been up that long, which doesn't affect first rights, but if you take it down and say it was self-published for a few months only...
 

Monnrella

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I am not an expert on this situation, but from what I've heard and seen, it is very unlikely that an agent will want to represent a book that you've already self-published. Something to do with the first rights publication thing. And even if an agent will represent you, then it's even less likely that a publishing house will want to take on something that's already been in print. That is, unless that book has been a major success and the agent and publisher know they can still make money on it.

That being said, you can definitely still give it a try, but you'll need to be honest that you self-published the book already.

I know it sucks when things don't go the way you've planned, especially on something you've dedicated a lot of time on, but have you considered moving on to a new book? Try writing something fresh and seek traditional publication with that? (I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I've learned the hard way that sometimes you just have to let a story go and move on to a new one.)

Thank you for your thoughts. I've started a new book, yeah, and it's going well. I just really hate that I did this. :(
 

Monnrella

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You can still query, it's just a longer shot that someone will be interested. It hasn't been up that long, which doesn't affect first rights, but if you take it down and say it was self-published for a few months only...

Hi there. I was wondering that, too, if I could take it down. It's only been published since the beginning of December. I've queried it in the past and had agents encourage me to query it with them again or send additional work, but I just gave up. :(
 

cornflake

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Hi there. I was wondering that, too, if I could take it down. It's only been published since the beginning of December. I've queried it in the past and had agents encourage me to query it with them again or send additional work, but I just gave up. :(

I'm not suggesting you hide that it was published, just to be clear. However, while many agents aren't interested in previously-published work, there are some who would maybe be more open to something that was up for a few months and didn't get promoted vs. did get promotion (which they may take as evidence no one wanted it) or was up for years.
 

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Is it still possible to query it, or have I definitively shot myself in the foot? I worked on this book for nearly two decades.

In one place you said you'd already queried it all over the place and had agents say you could send them other stuff in the future, correct? If that's the case, I'm wondering if you may have two factors not necessarily working in your favor: 1) you're likely limited to agents you haven't yet queried because usually "send me future projects" =/= "send me old ones" unless a R&R was specifically requested, in which case, I'd assume you would have done that and 2) you'll have to be upfront that it's already been published (albeit for a short time.)

So I'm guessing your best bet is to work on something new and submit that to agents. As to whether in the meantime you should pull the SP'ed work and try submitting that to new agents for the heck of it, you could. There's no reason if things don't work out with that route that you couldn't self-publish it again in a year's time if you wanted to.
 

Monnrella

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Hi KBooks,

No, I only queried about 15 agents in the past, but had 3 or 4 write back with feedback and ask for more substantial revisions. It was many years ago, though.

That's a good point about pulling it down a self-pubbing it again if I wanted to! Thanks.
 

MaryLennox

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Some smaller publishers are okay with previously self-published work, you just have to read their guidelines (or ask). I feel like you would definitely need to remove it/no longer have it available if you are going to start submitting again.

BUT - you said you didn't do much promotion for it. If you truly love this project and believe in it and already put the effort in to self-publish it, why not try to promote it as best you can? Seek out as many opportunities as possible. Also, the book has only been out since December. It can sometimes take several months or years for people to start noticing it.

I've heard of other self-published authors giving their books that aren't selling well a face-lift. Maybe the original cover just isn't working. If you're not an artist/graphic designer and you did it yourself, maybe you need to invest in a better cover. I hate to say it, but one of the things that drives me crazy is ridiculously ugly "self-published-looking" book covers. It's your book. You said it yourself, you spent **years** working on it. Don't half-ass the cover. People really do judge a book by it's cover. (Or at least I do. Sorry.)
 

Monnrella

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Hi Mary,

It's just always been my dream to be agented -- just always been my personal thing -- and I feel that at the end of the day, I was talked into this. That's why I really want to query it.

As to the cover, I did source that out and paid a lot of money for it.

ETA: I also live in the middle of nowhere and there are no opportunities for promotion locally. I also just really don't have what it takes to promote myself and my product, if we're being honest. I can do it in a query letter or job interview, but not on Twitter or FB or what have you.
 
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MaryLennox

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Hi Mary,

It's just always been my dream to be agented -- just always been my personal thing -- and I feel that at the end of the day, I was talked into this. That's why I really want to query it.

As to the cover, I did source that out and paid a lot of money for it.

ETA: I also live in the middle of nowhere and there are no opportunities for promotion locally. I also just really don't have what it takes to promote myself and my product, if we're being honest. I can do it in a query letter or job interview, but not on Twitter or FB or what have you.

Then it sounds like you should go ahead and keep querying. Like others have said, you'll just have to be honest that the book was briefly self-published. At least you know there were already some agents out there who liked your work. That's definitely a good sign and reason to keep trying. And obviously, while waiting to hear back, there are always new projects to be working on. Good luck!!! :)
 

Monnrella

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Then it sounds like you should go ahead and keep querying. Like others have said, you'll just have to be honest that the book was briefly self-published. At least you know there were already some agents out there who liked your work. That's definitely a good sign and reason to keep trying. And obviously, while waiting to hear back, there are always new projects to be working on. Good luck!!! :)

Thanks, Mary. :)
 

Marissa D

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If I were you, I'd...
1. Take your book off Amazon.
2. Finish the new book you're currently working on, make it very, very shiny, and query agents with it.
3. While you're in the query trenches, go back and look at book 1 again. You'll have learned a lot from the writing of book 2 (trust me--you will) that you can apply to revising/polishing book 1, so that if you do get agent interest with book 2, you'll have book 1 ready in case they want to have a look at it too.

But I'd also caution you that YA is a very, very tight market these days--don't let it defeat you. Good luck!
 
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Dennis E. Taylor

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If you become successful with other novels, publishers might be interested in picking up your self-pubbed book. You'd take it down, re-edit it, and release it with your publisher.

But you're unlikely to get your agent and publisher with that particular book.
 

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I agree with others that your best bet is to write something new and query that. Don't think of it as giving up on your first book - just parking it until you're in a stronger position to get the sales it deserves.
 

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Just reiterating what others have said. Write something new and query that. Maybe if you take your book down now, in the future you can ask your agent if there is something you can do with that. Also, if you gave up on querying after only 15 queries, you are going to need to get tougher skin. That may seem harsh, but this is an industry full of rejection. It will never stop. You will get rejected by agents, editors, and readers. Make peace with that and keep it moving.
 

Monnrella

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Just reiterating what others have said. Write something new and query that. Maybe if you take your book down now, in the future you can ask your agent if there is something you can do with that. Also, if you gave up on querying after only 15 queries, you are going to need to get tougher skin. That may seem harsh, but this is an industry full of rejection. It will never stop. You will get rejected by agents, editors, and readers. Make peace with that and keep it moving.

Hi. I didn't stop querying because of rejection. I actually had really good results, about a 30% request-for-full rate with almost all personalized rejections. I stopped because the book needed to be more cohesive in terms of voice as well as have a part reworked, and because some serious life stuff got in the way.

I do hope that if I take it down now -- which is what I'm leaning toward, thanks to everyone's great advice! -- I can do something more with it someday. I've written other books in the past, but this is the one that's always stuck with me and meant the most, so I've always returned to it.
 

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Life's lessons learned, move on.

That said, if you do sell a number of books in the future, your agent may want to look at republishing your past work.

Jeff
 

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Well, I think you learned a good lesson. From what I've heard, once something is published that's it. You could speak to someone who is an expert on the subject? But I think you've had it.
 

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A long term possibility: pull the book you've self published, query somethign else, get something else published, and once you're established/have more traction perhaps see about re-releasing that first book.

it'd take a very long time to get to that place, but something to aim for or keep in midn perhaps.

Edit: Jeff has already said the same thing! My bad. I should have finished reading the thread first.