Authorpreneur Forum Let's share our publishing exp..

Click below to read my experience with self-publishing:

...and I Offer my Soul to you Wholesale.

Funny this should come up - I wrote my blog on this today, I'll just paste it in:

I keep getting proposals from people who have a self-pulished or print on demand book that they want me to represent. Represent how, it's published? They
don't need an agent, they need a distributor. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people that are down on POD, it has its place. If a book is aimed at a
limited market and the author is willing to do all the sales, then POD is the way to go. Some POD companies even offer distribution, but if the author isn't out doing publicity and making sales people don't know to go there and buy them.

I have a friend who has several self-published books. He gets out and markets in some very high traffic venues and sells a ton of books, making a living at it. But he hasn't been able to use those sales to interest a traditional publisher in doing his books. Is he a success, you bet? Hard to say anybody making that number of sales isn't. Did it work as a strategy to get a major publisher? No.

As an avenue to convince a publisher to take it up, it doesn't work. Sure, there are a few who have made it happen, like MJ Rose, but they took a POD book and with huge personal marketing efforts sold a bunch, attracting a publishers attention. If one comes in that has sold well up in the thousands, that's a different deal.

Offering a POD is selling reprint rights, and when we talk to an editor about it the first thing they say is, "Does it have an isbn number?" Most PODs do. If we say yes, they ask about sales. I do have one I'm trying to work with that did not allow the publisher to give it an isbn number. I'm pitching it as a book where they had a "professional prototype" done to use in pitching some focus groups and told them not to have it online for sale anywhere. Will it work? Who knows?

Every time this subject has come up and I've made these comments, someone who has POD books out takes me to task. Don't bother, as I said, I'm not opposed to POD as long as you make the choice knowing all the facts and it's what you want to do, go for it. But if the choice is made trying to interest a major, or is made out of frustration because the writer is not willing to undergo several years of trying to find the right publisher that almost ever traditionally published writer went through, I question the choice. At any rate, don't send me a proposal on them, they're published, I can't help you.

Terry
www.hartlineliterary.com

Hey, Terry, thanks for the perspective! Very interesting response. I agree with most of your points. I wonder how many other agencies feel the same way.

I fear most agents would agree. We don't make any money unless our clients first make money but it's costing us to go out to sell our clients work. It is possible to sell a book that has already been published, but it's such a very low percentage possiblility (almost nonexistent without credible sales numbers) that our time is much better spent on some of the really excellent projects we receive each day which have not been published in any form.

The way I see it, it may look good in the past that I was able to sell my own books that were self-published and find some level of success with that. Basically, that would be the "resume" that I would show an agent. Of course, what I would present to them is my next unpublished project/s. I would be giving fresh material but with some experience and hopefully a proven track record. Thanks for your feedback. It's very insightful!

It can work that way, Dave, and a number have accomplished that. Just keep in mind your phrase "proven track record." You are proving one thing or the other, that your book will sell credible numbers, or you are proving that you didn't sell many copies. You've committed to this for a strategy, make sure you prove one and not the other if you know what I mean. I can't afford to pay the money necessary to check sales figures, a subscription is very expensive, but credible publishers can. I did a self-published book of cowboy poetry that sold about 6k but I haven't tried to do anything else with it even though the numbers were decent because poetry books are the hardest thing in publishing to sell. I have a POD book that has only sold a couple of thousand. Obviously I don't talk about it on my writing bio much.

Terry
www.hartlineliterary.com