The same can be said about a self-published author. They may not have the time or desire to spend countless hours on reseaching a publishing house just to find out what their particular criteria is. That in and of itself is a monumental task and takes away time from the writing process in general. It’s often easier just to hire an editor and and cover art desginer yourself.

When a publishing house and an author come together, it’s like a marriage of sorts. Both have to spend time working at it. Self-puplished authors have decided to strike out on their own. Having tried it myself, I’ve learned so much about the publishing business.

I think it’s in all writer’s interests to self-publish at least once. The ammount of information you can gain from the experience is so valuable. The one risk you run, is a lack of exposure to your work, that is the one area a big publishing house can help you.

Although with the internet now, that reality is also changing. I can’t really worry about being on a slush pile anywhere, when I’m researching my own artwork and audio tracks for my next project. I simply don’t have the time to for it.

My first novel was released Dec 2012 and yes it is self-published. The agent known as shark stated that self-published authors need to sell a minimum of 20,000 books before an agent would even consider to represent them. I have three novels that I am working on and for the first time I am very discouraged. I am on Amazon, Barmes and Noble and doing a lot of marketing and I work fulltime. Are there any agents out there who will represent self-published authors? I find it pretty harsh to state that self-published authors are ego driven. Are we any different from authors who have made it big with traditional authors? I am sure that was and is their dream to make money and to do well.

Since many traditional publishers have opened self-publishing divisions, evidence seems to suggest they are quite supportive of it, so long as they can make a buck. And who can blame them? That’s what businesses are supposed to do, make money.

What happens when things change? If increasing numbers of authors feel the traditional agent/publisher stream is not working for them? Each decision is an individual one, and not Not NOT driven by what the agent or publisher think is the ideal mode to seek publication.

What then? The slush pile on the agent’s desk may dry up. If it does, where might an agent go to see what’s “out there” from an author they might offer to rep? Where’s the good ole hopeful-author slush pile except in the indie published projects?

Things are changing. Nobody can see the future. I’m one of those who’ve chosen to go without the agent relationship. We’ll see what happens — but those who’ve got a vested interest in the status quo seem to try to keep things static. Static never lasts.

This! I am a writer that would love to just write.

I am also self-published because I know that no matter which way I swing it, I will still have to promote and market myself.

Having the help of a T.P. wouldn’t hurt, though! It’s still my goal.

Yes, there are lots of self-pubbed authors hoping to get noticed, but there are also lots of them who weighed the pros and cons and decided to self-publish simply for the advantages that it offers to authors.

Calling self-pub books the slush pile insinuates that self-pub’d authors are putting their work out there in the hopes of getting picked up by an agent and big 6 publisher. I’m not saying I would turn down a deal like Hugh Howey got, but I won’t be looking to “move up” to trad pub. Now that I’ve tasted the control, I would have a hard time relinquishing that to a publisher. But then, I was already well off, so I could pay a farly hefty price for exactly the cover art I wanted and that sort of thing, so I may not be representative.

I see self-published books as more of an oportunity for agents who don’t have a full load going already to find some clients. I don’t think successful self-pub’d authors are necessarly arrogant (well, maybe Konrath 🙂 ), but if I acieve some level of success with my self-pub’d book, I certainly won’t be shuffling my feet, hat-in-hand if an agent approached me. It would be an equal-to-equal relationship, whereas before, the agent was typically the one who took the writer under her wing and taught him the ropes. I’d already have a pretty good idea of what works, and so I’d be a little more headstrong in my dealings with anyone who tries to give suggestions. Certainly, everyone can understand that dynamic.

Fred

One thing that irked me about my experience with traditional publishing route was the low royalties and massive amount of work I had to do (less than ten percent and I had to do a lot of the marketing). I feel it’s vastly unfair for us to do so much work to gain so little in the long run. Me, I’m willing to do all of the work for all of the reward, so self-publishing is much more rewarding to me.

I also think too many writers think of self-publishing as the easy way out, and because of this we see a lot of poorly-crafted works rushed to market by those who didn’t know what the process entailed.

That said, (and having looked up the term) I do think that self-publishing is the new slush-pile. Sadly, it doesn’t have to be that way.