BellaOnline Forums Career Fiction Writing Effects of self-publishing on traditional options?

I just received an email from another author who wanted to share some guidelines from a traditional publisher that she'd come across.

One of the points stated:

"Do not send us books printed by PublishAmerica, iUniverse, Xlibris, or anybody else as a sample of your work. It will, in 99.9% of the cases, work against you. Obviously, that also means don't include those books in your query letter or list of credits, either."

That's quite a strong anti-self-publishing reaction from a traditional publisher - which doesn't mean they all feel that way, but it is worth bearing in mind if you are still considering that traditional publishing is the way you want to go.

Wow that is a strong statement. I have never seen that one before.

I hadn't seen anything quite so specific before either. But I think this publisher is spelling out what some of the others "secretly" think, but either don't want to admit to or don't think it's important enough to make as part of the guidelines.

It sounds to me like this particular publisher is firstly quite a small press (ie, with limited staff and time), and secondly has been inundated by many authors who initially self- or vanity-published and are now trying to get the same book published traditionally through a small press like this one. Perhaps they decided to stop pulling their hair out and just lay down the guidelines.

I've just seen the guidelines of another small publisher - one of the points is:

"We cannot consider any work which has appeared in another form, such as e-book or Print On Demand."

A lot of places consider something published if it's appeared anywhere else, including online. My book contains a lot of material that I've written about on my website, so I rewrote it completely (and then removed the best stuff from my website.)They don't want to compete with othere copies floating around the world, which is understandable.

On one hand I can understand a publisher wanting to have "unique content" - if someone can read it on the web, are they going to want to buy the book? But on the other hand MANY famous authors sef published to get a book known and then had it picked up by a regular publisher. I don't understand at all why a publisher should be upset about that.

I mean what if you self published a book on gardening in New England, saw that it was selling really well, and wanted to have it taken on by a real publisher? Is that supposed to be a bad thing?

I agree with you, Lisa. Two famous nonfiction books that were self-published first: What Color is Your Parachute and The Celestine Prophecy. One novel that got discovered a few years back on a Print-on-Demand reviewer's website: Lord Vishnu's Love Handles (that's really the title -- I kid you not). It got picked up by Simon & Schuster.

If you self-publish and then prove you can sell "x" number of copies on your website (and/or on Amazon) per month, it should catch the attention of traditional publishers (if that's even your goal in the first place: to end up with a traditional publisher). It's all about the bottom line!

Right you would think that would prove to them that you are a motivated author, one who will go out and promote and work for the book's success. Heck, it should be the people who just show up with a manuscript and say "I've done nothing else - make me rich" that they should worry about

Totally! Two more examples of books that were self-published first and then picked up by big traditional publishers:

Dear Zoe (fiction) by Philip Beard, picked up by Viking.

The Lost Soul Companion (nonfiction) by Susan M. Brackney, picked up by Bantam Dell, a division of Random House, which went on to publish her sequel.

Don't despair, writers. It is most definitely possible to self-publish first and then prove yourself to traditional publishers. Now I'm going to go and buy Lord Vishnu's Love Handles, which has to be one of the best titles ever!