Should I self-publish?

[Flatfrog]

I've got a book I've been sitting on for years and refining on and off. I went down the traditional 'look for an agent, send to publishers' route and it hasn't got me anywhere, but part of me wonders if these days that's even worth it.

The main things that are stopping me are these questions -

My book is aimed at teenagers and I have no idea if they read e-books. Isn't that the kind of thing adults who travel to work on the train do?
Am I potentially damaging my chances of being picked up by a publisher? (assuming it's not a 50 Shades runaway success)

I'm interested in hearing here because I know the Escapist has quite a large young-but-literate readership. Any thoughts are welcome!

(Oh - and one final thing. If I *did* publish it, would it be inappropriate to plug it here? )

 

[Soulrender95]

Are you sure you've tried everything realistically possible to get it published? I doubt it'd hurt your chances of finding a publisher in the future if the sales are there they'll want in on the money and you'd be a proven commodity making it less of a financial risk on the publishers part, the part it would probably hurt is in physical book sales some stores may refuse to stock it on the ground it's not tied to a big company.

But first Have you tried smaller publishers or just the big names? have you been published before (short stories in magazines ect) ?
have the rejection letters/emails said why it was rejected? if not it might be a case of going back and asking why it was rejected it might highlight that they didn't read it or only read the first page.

Are you the only one who's read it so far ?( you or just close friends/family), there's always the risk your too close to your own work to be able to pick up any potential issues or problems, go to people you know will read it and give honest feedback you might not want to hear it but it will be useful, could be anything from a plot hole or just a story point explain improperly.

try proving an audience for the book would exist, try releasing an excerpt chapter with a face book page to get feedback to show the publishers that people in the demographic are interested in it.

Edit: Did you follow the publishers specific submission requirements? if they have guidelines for submission and your manuscript didn't follow it they could have dismissed it out of hand.

 

[Queen Michael]

Don't selfpublish. If you gotta self-publish, your book probably needs a bit of work.

 

[Flatfrog]

Are you sure you've tried everything realistically possible to get it published?

Hell no. I'm well aware there's lots more I could do. There's plenty of publishers I haven't tried and it's perfectly possible someone else might pick up on it. In fact, I like to think eventually they would (I do think the book is good, after all, otherwise I wouldn't be considering this option). What I'm wondering is whether this mightn't be a better option in terms of cost/benefit. I know how many submissions publishers get and that even a good book by a first-time author (well, I've actually already been published, but it's a thousand page Maths textbook so not quite the same thing!) has a limited chance of getting noticed. Although of course I'm aware exactly the same issue exists in self-publishing!

Are you the only one who's read it so far ?( you or just close friends/family), there's always the risk your too close to your own work to be able to pick up any potential issues or problems, go to people you know will read it and give honest feedback you might not want to hear it but it will be useful, could be anything from a plot hole or just a story point explain improperly.

It's surprisingly hard to get non-family and friends to read things, but I did have two publishers interested years ago, who gave me some very good feedback although they ultimately said no. Your Facebook suggestion is interesting - that's exactly the kind of thing that would never occur to me, I'm not at all part of the social media game - web forums like this are about as far as I go down that path.

 

[Flatfrog]

Don't selfpublish. If you gotta self-publish, your book probably needs a bit of work.

A fair point, but I'm not sure it's true. Most authors had to work incredibly hard to get their first books picked up by publishers. Like I said above - even the best book in the world needs some luck to be picked up by the right reader on the right day.

 

[DazZ.]

My book is aimed at teenagers and I have no idea if they read e-books.

The only part of this thread I'm even remotely qualified to answer.

All the teenagers I know, that also read, love their Kindles or whatever and talk about how good they are a lot. Granted this is a grand sum of 3 people, but I don't know many teenagers let alone those that read books.
I am certain though Ereaders are used by teenagers, makes books easy to get and carry around.

Now I want one...

 

[Strazdas]

IF you can afford self publishing without the risk of going bust its always nice to keep control of your work. most people cant though. since this seems to be your first book, i dont think its worth risking your life on it though. Publishers are necessary evil.
Another thing is, and i know this may seem harsh, but i got perspective of being a guy that wrote 2.5 books and never published, and lets be honest, we see our work far greater than others see it. If a publisher does not pick it up you have a 1% chance of it being a great book they dont want to invest in because stupid and 99% that the book is shit. im not saying yours is shit or anything, but lets face it we overvalue our own work.
As for reading teenagers, all teenagers that i know read ONLY e-books and dont pick regualr books. granted i know more that listen to audiobooks than read them, but E-book is definatelly the format you want to go for unless you aim for demographic that are more likely to pick paperback due to lack of acess to e-readers. teenagers are not that demographic though.
Personally i dont use ereaders, because im an old fart that still think reading a PDF on a PC is superior. yay me.

 

[Benni88]

Don't selfpublish. If you gotta self-publish, your book probably needs a bit of work.

That's bull. There's plenty of fine examples of self-published work. Less so with books as historically they needed to be printed which was expensive. Digital distribution fixes that however.

What's important is exposure. Making sure the right people read the book. If you get press contacts who're sufficiently intrigued to read the book and enjoy it, they'll help do the promotion for you. You just need to email as many people who review your genre as possible. Chase up anything positive and make it your mission to spread the word of your book until it's being done for you.

 

[Pips]

I'd love to disagree with the assertion that people only self-publish because their work is terrible, but I'd probably have people yelling bias if I did!
Self-publishing is working for me, and my books are adult or YA fantasy. Alright, my sales are small, but I'm not promoting my books, so that's not surprising. I've kept full creative control and my books are available in many different countries. It didn't cost me anything either, so the financial side is irrelevant these days. I self-published through an Amazon project called Createspace, which allowed me to make paperback and digital copies available. In my experience, digital sells better, possibly because the print-on-demand physical copies are unfortunately quite expensive. You get a better royalty percentage from digital copies too.
PM me if you'd like to have a chat about it.

 

[Flatfrog]

Well I'm not a teenager anymore but I'm pretty sure all ages read e-books. Sales would only improve chances of publishers noticing it as they are notorious for not having faith in original concepts. The real question here is the book itself. What the hell is it?

It's a kind of modern-day fantasy about a community of kids living in secret in the middle of London. It's told through the eyes of a girl from a fairly well-off family who gets involved with them by accident and inadvertently brings on a crisis. I sometimes say it's like an optimistic Lord of the Flies.

 

[Snotnarok]

Can't really say much on publishing since I'm not a writer, I will say avoid posting links here of it though.

I asked a while ago if I could a link sharing my webcomic with other people sharing comics and I got "No it's self-advertizing". Thing is I don't make money on the comic, no ads, don't sell anything soooo I'm advertizing something that has not a dime revenue beyond a donation page.

I know there are users here who're very happy to report someone doing anything like that

 

[lacktheknack]

I had a friend self-publish.

She has a miniscule audience, but she doesn't get many trolls either. Pursue a publisher first, but if all else fails, self-publishing is doable.

 

[Queen Michael]

Don't selfpublish. If you gotta self-publish, your book probably needs a bit of work.

That's bull. There's plenty of fine examples of self-published work.

I freely admit that. Both my favorite comic, Cerebus, and my favorite novel, In Search Of Lost Time, were self-published. Hence the word "probably."

 

[Noswad]

Got a friend who's had a book published the traditional route, I can only offer bit of insight into that process, it took her about five years after writing to get it published, it was basically a constant stream of sending draft after draft and being told to make constant improvements and rewrites, by the end it was about quarter of its original size. The point being that while it may be your perfect creation but it doesn't exactly fit what the publishers think will sell, if your unwilling to make those sacrifices self publishing may be the best way forward. As a unpublished author you really have to bend over backwards to get a first book published, take on all criticism and advice to make it as good as possible, if they don't give a reason why they rejected you ask and find out its the only way forward. There are a lot of authors out there, publishers will only take what they think will sell.

However good luck on whatever route you decide to take and well done on finishing the thing, here speaking a guy with approximately 30 unfinished short stories on his hard drive.

 

[Gennadios]

If you're willing to pay to have the book translated into Russian or Hungarian, you can release it for free in those countries then hope to have the book take off there and then find a publisher for a Stateside release... it's worked for a few books.

Joking aside, self-publishing also means self-marketing. If you don't have a budget, you'll have to get alot of shell accounts to shamelessly run the plug/ban treadmill on any forums your target audience may congregate and try to grassroots some readers.

And yes, it would be inappropriate to plug it here, hence the above sentence.

 

[MysticMongol]

I'm just going to post a question/response from a writing advice column from a few years back. Hopefully it is of some help to you.



I've heard a lot about self publishing these days, so I want to know?in order to be successful, do I really have to make a contract with a big, soulless publishing house?




Absolutely not! All that a big, soulless publishing house adds to the mix is proofing, copyediting, editorial guidance, jacket copy, professional artwork for the cover, packaging design, professional credibility, access to retailers, advertising, promotion, a decent chance of being reviewed, and a somewhat smaller shot at the brass ring. Oh, and a cash advance.

By contrast, at a cost of less than ten thousand dollars (if you?re careful), a small, soulful self-publishing non-house provides you with all the excitement of a desert island adventure. You metaphorically place your novel in a bottle and cast it into the sea of the World Wide Web. Then you wait. Will anybody find it? If they do, will they read it? If they read it, will you ever know? Will you ever break even? For-profit publishing houses can?t offer you excitement like this.

 

[Benni88]

Don't selfpublish. If you gotta self-publish, your book probably needs a bit of work.

That's bull. There's plenty of fine examples of self-published work.

I freely admit that. Both my favorite comic, Cerebus, and my favorite novel, In Search Of Lost Time, were self-published. Hence the word "probably."

I recognise that going with a publisher can be a mutually beneficial arrangement for both author and publisher. It's a lot safer as you can have promotion handled through a third party with more experience in the area than most authors. But it makes me sad to see a lot of IPs ruined by the intervention (and ambition) of big name publishers. I'm talking about the high-profile worst examples here.

I just think that if someone is confident with what they've produced, the time is pretty good to self publish. With modern platforms and amateur reviewers gaining an increasing audience, there's never been a better time to go it alone.

Sorry if I was a bit blunt. This is a regular topic of discussion at home and at work.

 

[thedoclc]

I'm going to 1) preface this by saying that I am not an expert in any of this and 2) my main sources of information are from a couple of friends in the industry and from How Not to Write a Novel. This is a disclaimer a lot more people should make before trying to advise a writer. I'm looking at you, most-of-the-rest-of-the-thread.

For every success in vanity publishing, there's a whole pile of failure. Sure, we all hear about the rare successes, but we don't hear about everyone who pays for that distribution and has nothing to show for their work. If your manuscript is continually being rejected, there can be any number of reasons. For the most part, vanity publishers are like diploma-mill colleges - they'll take in any work you sent them and spew out the paper you want in exchange for some cash.

Noswad brings up most of the points I've heard/read from those two sources, but another point to bring up is your presentation. Editors and their like have so many manuscripts they just need one excuse to move something from the "Potential Harry Potter" pile to the "Recycle and Print More Twilight" pile. Check into you query letters, your formatting, etc, etc, if you haven't done so. Failing to adhere to those basic tenets basically red-flags you are "unprofessional" to a publisher. Lots of writers' groups have details about all that.