So I've read advice that says this is good. Your, well edited, book is out there, potentially growing a fan base whilst your submissions work their way through various agents/publishers ever growing subs.
However I have my doubts, or rather concerns. Would this appeal to agents/publishers? Be off putting? Irrelevant?
Thank you for your responses, and a range of experiences/perspectives at that! :)
My BG: I am now editing my first book, the beginning of a series entitled 'Of Bloody Reflections', and getting ready (read researching) for submissions, ect. (Cheers, Alice, and keep writing :) )
I'm ridiculously impoverished and just cannot afford to attend seminars et al. I received the Writers & Artists Yearbook as a mother's day gift and rely upon that, the internet and writing communities to get my info/buzz/opinions/research.
When I framed my question I didn't have the big success stories in mind, such as Eragon and 50 Shades. I don't think such can be truly anticipated, and surely should not be expected. I also remember the hoohar on the nets when the latter was still 'Master of the Universe' and can honestly say that is not the sort of notoriety I would willingly court.
Such instances do, however, highlight how the industry is modernizing and reinforces the idea of popular momentum fueled by the immediateness and scope of the internet. The scope, of course, also providing the foil....specially in a saturated market, like self/indie e pubs. It's reassuring to see how the impact of ebooks on print seems to be leveling off, and that trad pubs are starting to embrace, and push boundaries within, a revitalised market.
The place I initially found the suggestion on also advocated self pub' solely. To the extant they branded all agents 'sharks'. This, of course, set red flags to waving vigorously. I don't really support such tribalised dichotomy. Whilst such does happen it is more to do with human nature than any particular industry. There will always be bad apples.
The reason I asked (apart from my uncertainty and wish to see what lovely folks such as yourselves thought ;) ) was because I do seem some potential validity in regards to the spectrum of readers/buyers.
I also posed this to Writers & Artists on twitter. This was the response:
@_AFox_ Hi. Consider 2 things: 1) be careful about who owns the rights to your work 2) possibly a good way to prove you have an audience..
@_AFox_ ...but so is posting blogs and having a website - you can post snippets of your work there, too.
Which is pretty sound advice. Very much reinforcing an aspect that Simon P. Clark raises and highlights how important inside knowledge of an industry really is (or, you know, legal expertise). An aspect I need to research.
I know I need more experience/knowledge of the industry. The way of Jonathan Hopkins has always been in the back of my mind, and this seems the best recourse. If, say, after a year or two all I have had is rejection (boo hoo) then I will likely self pub....and carry on writing and sending out the next books in the series.
I think the pros and cons of self publishing might be slightly different to this specific question - should you self pub a book while you're submitting it to agents. In this case I would say 'No'. Agents take on books so they can sell the rights to publishers - and self publishing complicates this issue. Yes, there are exceptions - 50 Shades, for example - but the key thing in these case is that the self pub'd book did very well, and so the sales are what attracted attention. For an average debut, having it out while at the same time trying to sell it exclusively to an agent / publisher would be a bad call.
You can self publish books, and submit a separate book to the agent, while mentioning the other books and any success they enjoyed, though.
My admittedly limited experience is this.
I self-pubbed my first novel after getting fed up of rejections. The paperback sold in limited numbers, which I half expected (though we dream of thousands, don't we? lol), but the ebook version's done far better in terms of numbers.
Because I'd started a sequel I continued to approach publishers - I had sample chapters but I'd have been stuck if one had requested the whole thing straight away. Eventually one asked to see it, six months after my original query, so it was just about finished by then.
They offered me a deal based just on the opening chapters and without reading the whole thing, which I originally thought was a bit odd, but from conversations since I think they'd read the first book. I've not asked them outright, though, so can't be certain. *Coward!*
My gut feeling is that having a self-pub picked up by a publisher is akin to winning the lottery in terms of odds-against - it has to be right subject, right genre, right style, right time, right place etc etc And unfortunately there seems no magic formula: it's simply luck (or not).