Self-Publishing my Book - Comments welcome...

[coppice]

It IS possible to get a 'proper' publisher without an agent , at least in the non fiction stuff I write . I have had three books published between 2007 and 2019, simply by sending the manuscript to a publisher in the field (which apparently I shouldn't do either ) and keeping my fingers crossed . I've made five approaches and had two rejections .

[velocemitch]

Wickedbad said:

velocemitch said:

Traditional publishing is practically impossible to get into, we sent the info off to a dozen or so houses and the only responses came back from those that were obviously vanity ones… It seems in reality the only authors that get a trad contract now are those that know someone in the Industry or are an established ‘ celeb’ themselves.

I got my agent a couple of years ago and have a traditional publishing deal and trust me, I’m no celeb and knew no one in the industry, coming from a working class background. That could be down to genre I write in though - lots of crime writers have zero contacts when they start and there are always similar new writers getting deals.

I do agree in general though, it can be frustrating seeing huge deals handed out to celebs or industry insiders.

It might just be the terminology but to land a trad publishing contract you generally don’t send your MS to a publisher, you’d get yourself taken on by an agent first, who’s job it is to then sell your MS to the publisher.

Have you tried this route? I ask because I know Amazon publishing do a fair bit of romance, and it’s a pretty decent segment of the industry. I’m not sure if they accept direct submissions or only agented authors. I know a few authors who are writing it at the moment.

Best of luck to her, sounds like she’s doing fantastic anyway! Did you see some of the stats that came out of the Penguin antitrust case? From memory something like 95% of books they put out last year sold less than 5000 copies, so she’s already doing better than most traditionally published authors!

We did think of getting an agent, but that’s another 10-15% gone.
When we look at the competitors in the category the majority are from publishing houses such as Boldwood etc, not many SP ones ranking in the same figures. On that basis I’m not sure we would make a vast amount more with a publishing house, plus there would be more pressure. She enjoys the writing but doesn’t want the pressure.
She has a new book coming soon, which is a new genre to her, sort of fantasy, supernatural even a bit of crime. That could be a very different ball game. We talked about trying for a contract again, but came to the same conclusion.
Maybe we need to to talk to an agent and get a feel for it. We certainly need to study the genre, which to be fair is my job, so thanks for the prompt!

Edited by velocemitch on Thursday 6th October 08:44

Edited by velocemitch on Thursday 6th October 08:47

[Wickedbad]

coppice said:

It IS possible to get a 'proper' publisher without an agent , at least in the non fiction stuff I write . I have had three books published between 2007 and 2019, simply by sending the manuscript to a publisher in the field (which apparently I shouldn't do either ) and keeping my fingers crossed . I've made five approaches and had two rejections .

Yeah slightly different for non-fiction, they do generally take more unagented submissions I think.

But even so, yes still possible to get a traditional deal without an agent. Some publishers simply accept unagented submissions, and some of the biggest publishers have open periods too.

[Wickedbad]

velocemitch said:

We did think of getting an agent, but that’s another 10-15% gone.
When we look at the competitors in the category the majority are from publishing houses such as Boldwood etc, not many SP ones ranking in the same figures. On that basis I’m not sure we would make a vast amount more with a publishing house, plus there would be more pressure. She enjoys the writing but doesn’t want the pressure.
She has a new book coming soon, which is a new genre to her, sort of fantasy, supernatural even a bit of crime. That could be a very different ball game. We talked about trying for a contract again, but came to the same conclusion.
Maybe we need to to talk to an agent and get a feel for it. We certainly need to study the genre, which to be fair is my job, so thanks for the prompt!

Edited by velocemitch on Thursday 6th October 08:44

Edited by velocemitch on Thursday 6th October 08:47

All great points to be fair! There’s no right way I don’t think, especially these days.

I see you’re in Yorkshire, like me. Have a look at Harper North. A fairly new subsidiary of one of the big publishers, based in Manchester, publishing northern writers. The last time I heard, they were looking for all kinds of fiction, and because they’re new they were accepting unagented submissions.

I know they’re busy, but possibly one to try when you’re ready?

Good luck!

Edited by Wickedbad on Thursday 6th October 17:40

[Turtle Shed]

An update from me, again apologies for the unavoidable thread bump.

I finished a first draft of my book "Tales from Russet Grange" a couple of months ago and got just two copies printed. One as a birthday present for my brother and one for me to use as a source for editing and to get a feel for what it was like in print. That was a couple of months ago and I have now completed an edit and ordered 36 copies. (£4.50 each to print)

Some of those are already sold to friends and paid for, a couple of others will be gifts. Might make a small profit on those, doesn't matter if I don't.

Once I have had feedback from people who read the book I'll take things from there. If I'm confident of some sales then the next print run will be 500 books, first edition, with ISBN. That many cost £2.60 each, sale price £10.95 so I only need to sell 60 to break even.

That's all for now, will update in a few months. Thanks to everyone for the wise words and information in this thread.

Edited by Turtle Shed on Monday 19th December 18:16

Christmas Eve update to anyone interested. My initial print run sold out and I've just had a pre-order for 60 copies of the first proper edition. (It now has an ISBN).

So I made a little bit of profit, which pays for a good chunk of print run two, and we'll take things from there.

Edited by Turtle Shed on Saturday 24th December 17:13