What is the protocol with agents regarding this?

[TonyHarmsworth]

As my avatar box says, I'm new. I've written non-fiction and eventually had to self publish fairly successfully although I do now have a contract on the way from a real publisher for one of my non-fiction books.

I've been looking for agents for my first SF novel and every agent I've found is saying they will not even look at something which has already been self-published. This is very frustrating. Several agents ask you to jump through numerous hoops to even write to them and say they'll get back to you in x weeks! They don't want you to test the water with self-publishing and they expect you to only send your novel to them. You could die waiting at my age if you try to find an agent under those rules.

Anyway the upshot is that I'm self publishing, but am tempted to send to several agents as well. Anyone know if that is going to get me on a blacklist or something? Like a spammer? LOL. Interested to know.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I've been looking for agents for my first SF novel and every agent I've found is saying they will not even look at something which has already been self-published.

Normally an agent will only look at something previously self published if you have sales in excess of 5,000 - I suspect that threshold may have gone up as more of the self-publishers are getting savvy about how to sell.

Several agents ask you to jump through numerous hoops to even write to them and say they'll get back to you in x weeks!

This is normal. All agents have specific guidelines, will issue guidance on how to submit and very few come back to you in less than a few weeks. It gets worse as they start to look at full requests and what not.

They don't want you to test the water with self-publishing and they expect you to only send your novel to them.

The only time an agent will want you to send it only to them is if they have specifically asked for an exclusive. If they have, you can ask to agree a term for that. But no agent expects an exclusive as a rule of thumb. What they do ask is to be kept up to date with any offers from other agents, as a courtesy.

Most agents also have no problem with people having a self-published background at all.

I wonder if you can clarify where you got the information that they did?

Anyway the upshot is that I'm self publishing, but am tempted to send to several agents as well. Anyone know if that is going to get me on a blacklist or something? Like a spammer? LOL. Interested to know.

If you're self-publishing, don't seek an agent. That's the bottom line. They won't take it once it's self published unless it sells well (see above.) If you want an agent, you'll have to be patient. That, sadly, is the nature of the industry.

But, no, you won't get on a blacklist for self publishing. Many agents have clients who mix self publishing with traditional approaches - it's called hybrid publishing and is currently viewed as a very valid way to approach the market, particularly with titles that don't mix well with traditional publishers.[/QUOTE]

 

[Ajid]

You may have issues, an agent (in my limited experience.) will want to represent you based on their pottential return. I'll add here I have never self published and all this is an assumption. In the eyes of an egent they will struggle to make any money selling a book already available to a publisher. There are a fair few reasons for this. The advance is going to be low, the publisher will not have sole rights, (again this is my assumption I don't know enough about self publication.) and if there's no financial intrest for the publisher there is no reason for an agent to be interested.

If it were a new novel and your existing self published novel had done relatively well this could work in your advantage. You have to remember these guys get a LOT of submissions. Short stories sold to magazines like Interzone will help get your name noticed. They are vetted before they make the magazine and a lot of agents keep an eye on magazines like this, they hear the name and if it's the sort of thing they're interested in they'll remember it.

Getting an agent is no gaurentee of getting published. I've managed to hook an agent and they haven't managed to hook a publisher, but I'm also getting advice on what I need to do, (often it feels like killing my baby.) to my story to get it there.

In conclusion I think you have little to no chance of getting an agent without proof you have something new on the cards, but market what you have and it may help with getting an agent when you have something new.

Again I'll say I have no experience of self publishing so others may be better placed to advise.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Getting an agent is no gaurentee of getting published. I've managed to hook an agent and they haven't managed to hook a publisher, but I'm also getting advice on what I need to do, (often it feels like killing my baby.) to my story to get it there.

Ah, yes, this one. An agent does not mean a publishing deal. It's not always advertised, but it happens more than people realise.

Just a quick note of caution. I have the scars on this one. I changed a book to get a publisher, failed, and was left with it back in my hands. The first thing I did was change it back to how I'd subbed it (rather tighter and more polished, to be fair) and then I self-published it to good sales, excellent reviews and no harm done to my writing rep whatsoever.

Don't kill something you're not sure should go. Chasing a publisher at the cost of the book it should be doesn't always pay off.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Anyway the upshot is that I'm self publishing, but am tempted to send to several agents as well. Anyone know if that is going to get me on a blacklist or something?

As above, your option is one or the other. Publishers are not going to republish self-published work unless there are impressive sales figures to make it worth their while. So agents will necessarily have to refuse submissions for work already published.

However, you're right - the querying process does take a long time - but my impression is that publishers are looking for career authors, who can ideally submit new work on a regularly basis, ie, a novel a year. So if you're serious about being traditionally published, you'll need to consider the long term game. It's a marathon, not a sprint, as those in the industry say.

Of course, you can self-publish. There are plenty of reasons to - not least because you simply want copies for family and friends, or because you can seriously make a business case for doing so.

But don't expect to be able to eat from many different cakes at the same time.

 

[Montero]

My general impression from what self-pubs have said on here and "things" I've seen around is that if you self-pub electronically only then there is room to sell to the paperback to a mainstream publisher. In other words, if you self-pub in paperback as well, there may be nothing left to sell. However I could be totally wrong on this. Floating it to find out from others in the forum.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

My general impression from what self-pubs have said on here and "things" I've seen around is that if you self-pub electronically only then there is room to sell to the paperback to a mainstream publisher. In other words, if you self-pub in paperback as well, there may be nothing left to sell. However I could be totally wrong on this. Floating it to find out from others in the forum.

I've never heard this. Since the average sp will sell less than 20 of the paperback, I'd have thought the ebook rights were the more compromised.

 

[Montero]

OK, the impression I'd got, was that trad publishers could sell a lot of paperbacks from contacts with shops etc. What sp sell in terms of paperback varies with the sp - as in the people who've talked on here about doing the rounds of bookshops. So not previously published in paperback left that part clear for trad publishers.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Oh, that's certainly come up with best selling ebook authors - they get a "hybrid" deal, where they continue to self-publish the ebook, but sell rights to for the traditional publisher to publish the paperback for stores. Happened with writers such as Hugh Howey and Michael J Sullivan. However, these writers had exceptional sales records which made them attractive for publishers to approach in the first place.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

My plan, which may be rubbish:

• Write different Genres (Currently I have SF and F)
• Self publish the harder to place Genre (SF with strange bits)
• Submit everything not published to open windows etc.
• Not self publish anything I think might be more popular with trad publishing (Detective, Romance, Fantasy) unless I get very popular and run out of SF material (unlikely).

Self publishing a different genre (to the submitted genre) under a pen name, may help rather than hinder?

 

[tinkerdan]

If you have done all your homework and determined which agents you might make a run at, I don't expect it would be too damaging to send something that you self published that isn't well known. It might be good practice to send it out and see what the response is. That's as long as the agents are accepting submissions and you follow all their guidelines. The key is that if you have something that is good that they think they can work with then that's much more important than where you've been keeping it for the last three years.

I'm not sure that you need to tell them right off the bat that you self-published it unless you've sold over 5000 copies. You will need to eventually mention it; but I suspect if you get that far and have to do that, someone must like it enough to take a risk. Having low sales while self publishing might mean that someone needs lessons in marketing and not so much that the whole thing is trash and is beneath anyone's effort to look at it. What you have now will likely be reworked to death before it hits the market anyway so it wouldn't be the same novel self published earlier.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

My plan, which may be rubbish:

• Write different Genres (Currently I have SF and F)
• Self publish the harder to place Genre (SF with strange bits)
• Submit everything not published to open windows etc.
• Not self publish anything I think might be more popular with trad publishing (Detective, Romance, Fantasy) unless I get very popular and run out of SF material (unlikely).

Self publishing a different genre (to the submitted genre) under a pen name, may help rather than hinder?

This sounds remarkably like my own plan, as much as I could be said to have a plan. Note, that does not preclude its being rubbish.

 

[E.Maree]

Definitely don't try to chase both trade publishing/agent representation and self-publishing at the same time for the same project.
That way lies disappointment and frustration.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm not sure that you need to tell them right off the bat that you self-published it unless you've sold over 5000 copies. You will need to eventually mention it; but I suspect if you get that far and have to do that, someone must like it enough to take a risk. Having low sales while self publishing might mean that someone needs lessons in marketing and not so much that the whole thing is trash and is beneath anyone's effort to look at it. What you have now will likely be reworked to death before it hits the market anyway so it wouldn't be the same novel self published earlier.

I think this stands to be quite damaging - if an agent spends the time looking over a project that turns out not to be something they feel they can sell because of a prior-known set of circumstances, it's not going to go down well.
Better, I think, to be candid up front than later.

 

[tinkerdan]

My point is: if it is good and they like it they will likely want a look at the next thing that comes out of your corner.

I think this stands to be quite damaging - if an agent spends the time looking over a project that turns out not to be something they feel they can sell because of a prior-known set of circumstances, it's not going to go down well.
Better, I think, to be candid up front than later.

Yes agents are human and don't like their time wasted; but if the piece has been out and has about a thousand copies out then it's not even touched the market so having the agent feel like he is wasting his time would only make sense if agents all are really capricious about the way they chose good work.

I think that if it were also published weekly on a website then it would make your argument more substantial that the agent would be wasting his time because it would be difficult to tell then whether the market was saturated. On the other hand if it is popular and the website has a large following that could all turn around the other way.

But I think that if you pull the plug on the self published piece and then repackage it for the agent there shouldn't be any reason to explain that there might be a few copies out in peoples hands. After all there can be quite a number of beta's and other helpers who have seen any authors work before it gets to the agent. About the only snafu I can envision is if someone recognized it (which seems implausible by virtue of some arguments) and there might then be questions of copyrights that muddy the issue.

Edit:: There might be a compelling argument against the idea of subbing a SP piece when considering the piece as having been published-- if the agent is specific about wanting new fresh work that has not been published. On the other hand there could be argument from some direction that self publishing isn't considered publishing; though these days there is less likelihood of that argument standing.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Sorry, I phrased my response badly.

Agents will want to know a manuscripts history to ascertain if it's something they rep. Not all agents would be in the market for previously self published whereas others are open to it. If an agent doesn't rep sp and an author has subbed something with that history without revealing it, that agent will have wasted their time. And that reflects very poorly on the author because agents don't have a bundle of time for reading.

It's not about market saturation, or how a mss will change - it's about whether or not an agent reps that sort of work.

 

[tinkerdan]

I understand that perfectly::

Sorry, I phrased my response badly.

Agents will want to know a manuscripts history to ascertain if it's something they rep. Not all agents would be in the market for previously self published whereas others are open to it. If an agent doesn't rep sp and an author has subbed something with that history without revealing it, that agent will have wasted their time. And that reflects very poorly on the author because agents don't have a bundle of time for reading.

It's not about market saturation, or how a mss will change - it's about whether or not an agent reps that sort of work.

:: and I wouldn't want to work with those agents myself; so the caution would breeze right by me and I'd send it anyway. Chances are they wouldn't waste their time with it either way.