Self-Publishing: Where's the Marketing?

I can't tell you how often I see queries in my inbox that start "I self-published my book ___, but I am frustrated/underwhelmed with the sales and now I need an agent to take it to the next level."

They need someone to boost sales for them and teach them how to market. A publicist. Not an agent.

Agents do more marketing all the time as the landscape shifts (me more than many--I like it). But this is done for clients--people for whom we have sold a book. Any marketing assistance would be supplemental to the function of selling the book (the only thing, incidentally, for which an agent is traditionally paid--on commission). If you've already gotten the book published, you've essentially done the agent's primary job. 

As I said in the previous posts in our self-publishing series, legacy/traditional publishing and self-publishing are different paths. If you're looking to move between these paths make sure you're realistic about how much you expect the other system to bend over backwards to accommodate you.

Agents functioning primarily as a publicist is just not going to happen. We sell: foreign, print, audio, etc. etc., and we want to do so for self-published authors too. But you've got to sell those copies yourself first.

Tomorrow's #AskAgent!

Self-Publishing Mechanics

Most agents and editors agree that 5,000 is the minimum number of copies a self-published book has to sell in order to be considered a viable choice for a traditional publishing deal. This within 6 months or fewer, in order to be really eye-catching.

That is a lot of copies.  

It seems sort of unreasonable, really, if you don't know why a book has to sell that many. Honestly, one thousand copies, essentially sold by hand, while holding down a full-time job, should impress pretty much anyone. And in truth, it is impressive!

But you're not trying to impress a person. You're trying to impress a Profit and Loss Statement (a P&L: example here). This financial statement is used to project profits for a publishing house. In the case of debut writers, the "Revenue" section is guess work, based on how books like theirs have sold. In the case of non-debut writers, it's based on their actual past sales numbers. If the "Revenue" doesn't exceed expenses, book 2 (or 3 or whatever) is in trouble.

The P&L is one of the most common causes of a book getting turned down by a house, particularly in the case of authors who were first published by a small house or self-published. It's the P&L that agents have in mind when they say that you must have 5,000 copies sold in order to be considered for a traditional publishing deal. 

Self-Publishing vs Traditional Publishing

Agents wear all sorts of hats these days, but it's important to remember the first hat any agent wears (or should wear) and that's to sell books to publishers.

Which means self-publishing and traditional publishing diverge very fundamentally.

If you've published your book in any way, whether it's on your blog for free, as an ebook, or through a small press, you've essentially taken over the agent's job. Many do this to great satisfaction. Most, though, find themselves frustrated and feeling duped without representation.

Of course, some self-published authors get leveraged into traditional deals with publishers, but these are few and far between and the mechanics are complicated (more later this week). There is about a 1% chance that your self-publishing experience will look anything like John Locke's.

If you're hoping to be published traditionally, the best way to get there is traditionally. Query agents. Revise for agents. Attend conferences. Do research. Get an Agent. Get a Book Deal.

If you exhaust that avenue, and no one is smart enough to see you've written a bestseller, then self-publish (this is almost universally better than signing with a small press, believe it or not, because you keep ALL your rights--meaning you can sell them later if a big publisher is interested).

If you self-publish and then try to query agents, you will universally get "No" unless you've sold in excess of 5,000 copies. This is not an opinion of mine, it's the fact of the matter. An agent cannot leverage print rights on a self-published book without sales numbers to back it up. As a debut author, querying agents, you have no sales numbers and no one expects you to. You're a debut. But once you're published, even if you do it yourself, publishers need to see some $treet cred.

Queries of a different sort...

Yesterday was so much fun that I vote it become a Thursday institution on this blog. All those in favor? All those opposed? OK. It's settled.

Thanks so much for all the questions, everyone, and let's tune in next week for a discussion of self-/indie publishing and the relationship to traditional/agented publishing. Are they symbiotic? Mutually exclusive? The basics are covered in yesterday's comments section, so take a look there if you're wondering. But does anyone have any follow ups to yesterday's discussion of the matter? Let's make sure I answer them next week!!

Yay collaboration!

#AskAgent

Let's have question time. You can ask anything for the next two hours and I promise I'll answer it before midnight tomorrow (so end of the day Friday). Yes, questions about your projects are OK, but let's keep it general: word count for a particular category (or look here), character age, whether a character name is distracting. We're not editing (although maybe you'll find a good beta reader!), so don't post excerpts. Know also that this is public--don't post anything that you might not like the answer to (so no marriage proposals, please) or that might cross the "too personal" line!

Some of you will probably have awesome questions that are too complex to answer in the comments--for those, I'll do blog posts in the coming weeks.

Use good judgment, please, so that I want to do this again. :) 

Questions open now until 6:15 pm EST.

Word Counts

Approximate word count ranges for major categories are:

General Adult/Women's Fiction: 60-90K
Thrillers: 80-100K
Fantasy/SciFi: 80-low 100K
Young Adult: 60-85K (more for the scifi/fantasy/paranormal brethren)
Middle Grade: 40-60K (ditto)

I wonder if, with media being constantly condensed (shorter blog posts, headlines in lieu of full news reports, 140-character updates), readers will start to be less tolerant of longer books?

I've heard some rumblings about this, and I think there is definitely some trend here toward bite-sized media in all forms. But then I hear about all of the cool additions being made to books these days (like soundtracks), and I wonder if the changing face of media isn't going to make for richer multi-sensory experiences, even as some things, like word count, change.

Then I wonder if I'm really going to like all the add-ons all that much. So, you know.

What do you think?

Is your book melodramatic?

How does one know when his or her writing crosses the line from emotionally compelling to just too much?

For me, it's often in "the twist." Something that's merely intense veers into soap opera territory when an author adds that one. more. thing. The twist in these cases is often highly salacious or verboten rather than subtle and surprising.

For instance: pregnant terminally ill main character discovers she has to solve a murder--of her baby daddy.

Or: Small town guy realizes he's gay and must face coming out to his Bible-belt family and friends--but then his father dies in a plow accident and CAN HE REALLY RISK TEARING HIS FAMILY APART MORE?? Oh, and then he discovers his father's stash of child porn when going through his effects.

No joke, those were in my inbox.

Trust yourself, writers. The above stories have great hearts: facing one's own death as a new one is starting. Navigating prejudice of those close to you. Tell those stories; you don't have to throw the kitchen sink in, too.