My friend is not so net savvy and he just finished writing what appears to me to be a wonderful, engaging, fun, exciting…blah blah blah fantasy novel. He wants to get published and I believe he should do this:
Self publish electronically on mobipocket immediately. And not spend too much time waiting for big time publishers to respond to his inquiries. If the book is good, it will start to sell and gain momentum on mobipocket and that will make publishers pay attention to take it to the next level.
What do you think? Any advice? What would you tell him?
I just don’t want him to waste time if he can just self publish and then get to work on his next book…and just let the book rise based upon its merits and allow the publishing thing to work itself out.
When was the last time you bought a self-published book? When was the last time you bought a self-published book from a name you didn’t recognize? When was the last time a friend of yours recommended a self-published book?
Right now, I publish pretty much exclusively with epublishers. Nearly all my books are ebooks. They go through several rounds of edits, they get fairly nice covers, they are sold through several distribution channels (including mobi-pocket), and they are with publishers that already have a bit of a loyal following. My biggest seller is quite good for epublishing, but still peanuts compared to print publishing, and I regularly get emails asking when my books will be in print (since the vast majority of people, even with e-readers, don’t like ebooks as a first/only choice).
If your friend wants a handful of people to happen across his book randomly, then yeah, self-publishing an ebook is the way to go. If your friend wants to be a professional author, I suggest he start going through the frustrating (and arcane) process of getting a book accepted/published.
If it is really a great book, he should get an agent. There are a number of books on how to write a query letter, which can be sent to several agents simultaneously. He should look them up on the web to find the ones handling this kind of book, and also to find specific requirements. If an agent likes the proposal, he will request the book - the whole one, or maybe a few chapters.
Another possibility is to find a writing conference near you, where you can often pitch to a bunch of agents and publishers at once.
If he wants to send it to a publisher, he should check if they accept over the transom submissions. Many don’t. Small publishers will, but I suspect they are hurting these days.
While there are certainly cases where ebooks and self published books have been successful, they are rare. Most people think that if a book was that good, a real publisher would have taken it. Agents also have seen lots of things, and can offer good advice. Friends are not very good judges of the quality of books.
A guy in my old writing group self-published a memoir. He was in marketing, and marketed the hell out of it, even getting a few reviews and a radio show. It never went anywhere, and he was sorry that he didn’t try to go the traditional way.
If no one wants it, then he can epublish it just to have it published. But I don’t see any reason to rush. He can write the next one while waiting to hear about this one, after all.
Get an agent. Pepperlandgirl is right – sales for self-published fiction ebooks by unknown authors are next to zero.
My first novel was published by a major publisher. It sold 16,000 copies. My second novel only appeared in electronic form. It sold 16 copies. That was a couple of years ago, so if I did it again, I might have sold 25 copies.
The only time self-publishing makes sense is if you have a nonfiction book with a limited audience. You can make money writing a small pamphlet on a small aspect of your town’s history, for instance. But fiction never makes any money when it’s self published.*
Your friend can start contacting literary agents who handle fantasy fiction. They can be found in Writer’s Market.
Very important!!!: never, under any circumstances whatsoever, pay money to an agent. Any agent that asks for money before the book is sold is scamming you, no matter how reasonable his explanation sounds.
*Unless and until a major publisher decides to reprint it. So why go through the first step when it’s the second one that counts?