Will An Agent Accept A Self-Published Book?

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Carlene

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Gillhoughly

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I am going to delete everything, throw out the disc that those manuscripts were saved on,

Um--don't.

I've got stuff written when I was 14 and didn't know how to make it work, but I recycled later when I did figure it out.

GOOD writers never throw out the whole thing. You rework and recycle, because sometimes in that swamp of words you find gold.

Nothing goes to waste.

At least keep a disc copy. Sure as anything two weeks later you'll wish you had. It's not like it's going to take up as much space as that box of ideas I have shoved behind my desk.

Lois McMaster Bujold reworked a Star Trek fan fic she wrote in high school/college.

When she got done with the rewrite, it sold to Baen Science Fiction and was the first in her Hugo-winning Vorkosigan Saga. Those are the best in S.F. that I've read in years, if not the best books in general. I've read them half a dozen times and always find something new, always learn something new in my craft.

Check out Shards of Honor and see if you see much in the way of Trek once she filed off the serial numbers.
 
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AAARRRRGGGG - never throw any of your work away! Never! I had a short story published in an Anthology of Christmas stories in October of 2009. Yes, I got paid for it and....I wrote it 30 years ago!

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Um--don't.

I've got stuff written when I was 14 and didn't know how to make it work, but I recycled later when I did figure it out.

GOOD writers never throw out the whole thing. You rework and recycle, because sometimes in that swamp of words you find gold.

Nothing goes to waste.

At least keep a disc copy. Sure as anything two weeks later you'll wish you had. It's not like it's going to take up as much space as that box of ideas I have shoved behind my desk.

Lois McMaster Bujold reworked a Star Trek fan fic she wrote in high school/college.

When she got done with the rewrite, it sold to Baen Science Fiction and was the first in her Hugo-winning Vorkosigan Saga. Those are the best in S.F. that I've read in years, if not the best books in general. I've read them half a dozen times and always find something new, always learn something new in my craft.

Check out Shards of Honor and see if you see much in the way of Trek once she filed off the serial numbers.


I finally know how to use the multi-quote function! Yay!!


Ok, Carlene, you are absolutely right. I did delete my manuscripts because I thought (the previously self-published ones) that they would be dead and useless just because they'd been self-published and no one else would want them. I'm still not sure if that's true, but my books are all taken off the market, deleted from the author control panel, deleted from everywhere, and since they're smaller manuscripts, they are slightly different now. I am going to change the names of the stories, the names of the characters, and add a final scene to each book that's in a series. I am also going to do what I've already done with the same series 3 times, which was edit for spelling and grammar errors to have it clean and polished again. I thank God that I had those stories saved on another CD-R.


Gillhoughly, you're absolutely right about the rewrite thing. That is exactly what I'm going to do. I am going to make minor but significant changes and I will follow your advice. The copies of those manuscripts that are on that disc that I found, they're not exactly the same format and size that they're in my hard drive right now, so I'm going to burn those into the CD, too.


Thank you guys for everything.
Sincerely
Magali.

PS: Yes, you guys are all absolutely right. I tend to get desperate at times, and impatient. It's just something that I'm going to have to work on. :) I love you guys. You're great.
 

Gillhoughly

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Great!

Things to eliminate: that desperation and impatience. Neither will be useful to you as a writer. That's likely what messed things up in the first place when you self-pubbed.

I KNOW what it's like! I was totally ready to self-pub my first book after the 10th rejection.

Fortunately, I didn't have the money.

By the second year and another 10+ rejections I was ready again.

Still didn't have the money.

Which was GOOD or I'd have missed out signing a 6-book contract and not have sold a dozen other books besides. (Never mind being an editor, yow.)



These days, money isn't an issue. Self-publishing is as easy as uploading a file.

Which is a crying shame for a lot of books and their impatient writers.

If the writers were patient, got feedback, and put on their game face to make the rounds and kick it old school--which is how publishing operates if you want to go pro--they'd be getting book contracts, not frustration at low sales and losing 1st printing rights.

Patience is the hardest thing to learn. Dang it, I want patience and I want it NOW!

:D
 
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Great!

Things to eliminate: that desperation and impatience. Neither will be useful to you as a writer. That's likely what messed things up in the first place when you self-pubbed.

I KNOW what it's like! I was totally ready to self-pub my first book after the 10th rejection.

Fortunately, I didn't have the money.

By the second year and another 10+ rejections I was ready again.

Still didn't have the money.

Which was GOOD or I'd have missed out signing a 6-book contract and not have sold a dozen other books besides. (Never mind being an editor, yow.)



These days, money isn't an issue. Self-publishing is as easy as uploading a file.

Which is a crying shame for a lot of books and their impatient writers.

If the writers were patient, got feedback, and put on their game face to make the rounds and kick it old school--which is how publishing operates if you want to go pro--they'd be getting book contracts, not frustration at low sales and losing 1st printing rights.

Patience is the hardest thing to learn. Dang it, I want patience and I want it NOW!

:D


Hi. First of all I want to thank you for all your help and putting up with me. I am going to make all the changes that I talked about on the previous post (eliminating spelling and grammar errors and changing character names and adding the ending scenes) and, you know, when my manuscript is polished I will place a chapter or two in the Share your Work forum and then I will query, but since there are thousands and thousands of agents out there, 10 rejections won't get me down. Not even 20. Or 40. :D


Sincerely,
Magali.
 

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Ok Magali, I think you're gettign a bit ahead of yourself here. Yesterday you were deleting everything and now you are preparing to query.

My advice is to sit down, edit until your eyes bleed, polish your work and grow a skin like an elephant, because you're going to need it.

If you had a drama like that yesterday because of a few offhand comments, how are you going to react when the rejections start coming in?
 

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Magali,
you're on the right track, it seems. Take it slowly, there's no rush.

One thing to keep in mind that polishing a ms is more than just running a spellcheck. It is great to have a typo-free ms, but there are plenty of issues that a spellcheck won't pick up. My biggest offenders are repeating the same sentence structure in 10 sentences in a row; repeating the same words too close together; repeating the same thought, worded slightly differently; using 2 or 3 adjectives when only 1 would sufice; using too many adverbs....Just to name a few. Editing a manuscript often requires several steps. First you'd edit for flow; then you'd edit for pace; then you'd edit your dialogues; then syntax.

But the most important rule--never delete anything! :)
 

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Magali has to be a troll. The only thing on this thread that makes sense is all of the kind and generous responses.
 

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The drama is irksome, but seems more young with ESL complications than troll.
 
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Ok Magali, I think you're gettign a bit ahead of yourself here. Yesterday you were deleting everything and now you are preparing to query.

My advice is to sit down, edit until your eyes bleed, polish your work and grow a skin like an elephant, because you're going to need it.

If you had a drama like that yesterday because of a few offhand comments, how are you going to react when the rejections start coming in?


No, I am not quite ready to query. I am not going to query until I have at least 10 new novels to work with. I thank you for your advice. When rejections start coming in I will be saddened and disappointed, but that won't stop me.


Magali,
you're on the right track, it seems. Take it slowly, there's no rush.

One thing to keep in mind that polishing a ms is more than just running a spellcheck. It is great to have a typo-free ms, but there are plenty of issues that a spellcheck won't pick up. My biggest offenders are repeating the same sentence structure in 10 sentences in a row; repeating the same words too close together; repeating the same thought, worded slightly differently; using 2 or 3 adjectives when only 1 would sufice; using too many adverbs....Just to name a few. Editing a manuscript often requires several steps. First you'd edit for flow; then you'd edit for pace; then you'd edit your dialogues; then syntax.

But the most important rule--never delete anything! :)

I will keep that in mind. Thank you.



Magali has to be a troll. The only thing on this thread that makes sense is all of the kind and generous responses.


Oh, ok, so now I am a troll. I didn't know that expressing my concerns and updating people on what I'm doing with my work when I asked advice on what I should do, and saying how I feel was trolling. I thought that insulting and disrespecting, baiting and provoking was trolling, but it seems that I am wrong.


The drama is irksome, but seems more young with ESL complications than troll.

What does ESL complications mean? And one other question, am I really trolling?
 

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I will not query any of my manuscripts until I have at least ten more finished manuscripts. Thank you everyone.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Posts like this make you look like a troll. ESL means English as a Second Language.

10 finished manuscripts before querying? That is just Ridiculous. A ridiculous thing to say. It makes people assume you are a troll just stirring up trouble.
 

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Only you know that, amigo. :Hug2: Maybe it's part of your research for the next novel.

And I look forward to learning when you've got ten new novels to work with -whatever that means.

But you do leap all over the place and every time someone makes a suggestion -whoosh!- you're off to follow it -until the next suggestion, then wham! you're off on another tangent.

And one other question, am I really trolling?
 

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Um... you do realize that an agent or publisher will only offer a contract on ONE novel at a time, right? Yes, you can sign a 2 or 3 or ten book deal once they fall in love with the one, but the editor/agent will be the one who picks which ones they want to produce.

I won't say it's impossible to produce ten publishable books in a short time (because I can do it) but it's pretty unusual at the beginning, when you're just learning how to plot and develop characters.

Just sayin...
 
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I will not query any of my manuscripts until I have at least ten more finished manuscripts. Thank you everyone.
Ten drafts of the same manuscript? I'd believe that. The one I've got queries out on right now is the twelfth draft. (How do I know that? I've saved everything.)

Ten different manuscripts? You do realize that if you send out the first draft on each one, you have absolutely no chance of getting pubilshed. Agents and publishers know a first draft when they see one. As others have already said, SLOW DOWN, edit one manuscript, and get it ready to query.
 
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This makes no sense whatsoever. Posts like this make you look like a troll. ESL means English as a Second Language.

10 finished manuscripts before querying? That is just Ridiculous. A ridiculous thing to say. It makes people assume you are a troll just stirring up trouble.

Well, I didn't mean to offend anyone. English as a second language, oh, so you're saying that just because English is my second language I can't speak English? Or just that I speak it incorrectly? I am not going to try to convince you that I am not a troll, but just because some people don't understand what I am trying to say that doesn't make me a troll. Well, that may be ridiculous to you but it's not ridiculous to me.

Only you know that, amigo. :Hug2: Maybe it's part of your research for the next novel.

And I look forward to learning when you've got ten new novels to work with -whatever that means.

But you do leap all over the place and every time someone makes a suggestion -whoosh!- you're off to follow it -until the next suggestion, then wham! you're off on another tangent.

Ok....................

Um... you do realize that an agent or publisher will only offer a contract on ONE novel at a time, right? Yes, you can sign a 2 or 3 or ten book deal once they fall in love with the one, but the editor/agent will be the one who picks which ones they want to produce.

I won't say it's impossible to produce ten publishable books in a short time (because I can do it) but it's pretty unusual at the beginning, when you're just learning how to plot and develop characters.

Just sayin...

Thank you.

Ten drafts of the same manuscript? I'd believe that. The one I've got queries out on right now is the twelfth draft. (How do I know that? I've saved everything.)

Ten different manuscripts? You do realize that if you send out the first draft on each one, you have absolutely no chance of getting pubilshed. Agents and publishers know a first draft when they see one. As others have already said, SLOW DOWN, edit one manuscript, and get it ready to query.

I meant ten different manuscripts, ten different stories. And yes, I am going to query one story at a time.
 

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But agents don't want first drafts.

They want something that you've pored over a hundred times, until you're sick of looking at it and it is the best you're humanly possible of making it.

It's fine to have ten drafts, but you're going to have to pick ONE, and decide that you're going to rewrite and edit and revise and edit and rewrite over and over until it's perfect. Then you query that ONE manuscript while you work on doing the same thing to a different story.
 

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Ten drafts of the same manuscript? I'd believe that. The one I've got queries out on right now is the twelfth draft. (How do I know that? I've saved everything.)

Ten different manuscripts? You do realize that if you send out the first draft on each one, you have absolutely no chance of getting pubilshed. Agents and publishers know a first draft when they see one. As others have already said, SLOW DOWN, edit one manuscript, and get it ready to query.

I meant ten different manuscripts, ten different stories. And yes, I am going to query one story at a time.

What Ben is trying to say is that if you write ten books and never edit them, you've only learned how to write a first draft of ten books. You have not learned how to review, edit and revise. These are all necessary and mandatory skills if you're going to do the work demanded of you if/when an editor buys your work.

You've finished a book first draft now. Take the time to learn how to review, edit and revise this one before moving onto another completion of a first draft. The longer you put it off, the more likely that it'll be harder for you to learn.

I say this from experience of writing nothing but first drafts for over thirty novels. I've spent the last five years or so struggling to overcome the bad habits of not revising and learning to do the work that's not easy for me.
 
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Ok, this goes to everyone...


I have tried to get my ideas across and everything I wanted to say as clearly as possible. I am not a bad person, and I don't like making people mad on purpose, on the contrary, it horrifies me to make someone mad. I don't intend to annoy anyone. The fact that someone here was saying, along those lines, that I didn't deserve it for you to be nice to me just because my posts in this thread didn't make sense and I am a troll... well, I beg to differ because to my understanding, I have not purposely offended anyone here, and if I have done it unintentionally, I'm sorry. The day that I come to these boards and I am not able to log in because I've been banned, then I will know that I am trolling and that I am doing bad things. So far, I haven't received PM's from moderators telling me that I am doing something wrong, that I am breaking the rules and I'm out of control, and so far I've been able to log in without a problem, so I assume that I am not doing anything wrong. The treatment that I have received from that person in particular, the one that said that I am a troll, and the treatment that I have received from KTC makes me think twice about writing on these message boards because those people really hate me, or simply don't like me, and I don't want to be on a place in the Internet where I am not wanted. If I ever fail to understand what someone's trying to say, I would ask them to explain to me what they're saying. I wouldn't call that person a troll or imply that I am purposely causing trouble. I came here to express a concern, to ask for help, to ask for advice, but from everything that's happened in this thread today I realize that it was the wrong thing to do.


Once again, I am sorry, and if I am ever unable to come in here again, I will forget about this place, and about what another poster says... Yes, I take every reply to this thread and every bit of advice very seriously, to let you know that I am listening to what you're saying and that you are not wasting your time giving me advice that I am not going to take. If that is wrong, I apologize for it, too. I have been criticized for being dramatic also, but I cannot hide how I feel. It is easier for me and it makes me feel better when I express how I feel, it doesn't matter if I'm angry or sad... I don't know, it's just better than holding it in and not telling anyone about it.


Magali.
 

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I'm sorry...but now you're just being your extreme self. I don't know you enough to hate you. I do, however, know you enough to use my 'ignore' button again.
 

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Okay. Just want to clarify a point, the person who said you were ESL wasn't accusing you of anything, but was actually trying to defend you not being a troll, but possibly someone who doesn't have as good grasp of the English language and thus might not always be able to articulate yourself as you would like to. People worried you might be a troll as some of what you were saying was starting not to make sense, then someone said, "It might be because the person is ESL and/or young" thus not quite as able to write exactly what they mean.

That's all. No one was saying that being ESL was a bad thing, goodness we have many people from around the world here and I am always in awe that they are willing to communicate in a language not their own. Heaven knows I could never do that.

But it might explain why people are getting a bit confused with your posts. Have patience with us, and we will try to have patience with you. :)

(btw only one person here suspected you were a troll, most everyone else came to your defense. One person got it wrong, relax, it's cool, as you say no one has sent you a PM or anything, we's good :) )
 
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I'm sorry...but now you're just being your extreme self. I don't know you enough to hate you. I do, however, know you enough to use my 'ignore' button again.

As a matter of fact, you don't know me enough to do anything, so I take that back. I think it is impossible to know anyone based on a few posts. If you want to use your 'ignore button', that's ok with me. If you don't agree with what I am saying, or if you don't like it, then don't talk to me ever again. I don't know you, you don't know me, and we'll probably never know each other because it's just not possible, like I said, to actually know someone from what they post on a message board. By the way, I will ignore you, too. This is my last message to you. I'm sorry if I'm rude, but I think you are treating me unfairly.


Okay. Just want to clarify a point, the person who said you were ESL wasn't accusing you of anything, but was actually trying to defend you not being a troll, but possibly someone who doesn't have as good grasp of the English language and thus might not always be able to articulate yourself as you would like to. People worried you might be a troll as some of what you were saying was starting not to make sense, then someone said, "It might be because the person is ESL and/or young" thus not quite as able to write exactly what they mean.

That's all. No one was saying that being ESL was a bad thing, goodness we have many people from around the world here and I am always in awe that they are willing to communicate in a language not their own. Heaven knows I could never do that.

But it might explain why people are getting a bit confused with your posts. Have patience with us, and we will try to have patience with you. :)

(btw only one person here suspected you were a troll, most everyone else came to your defense. One person got it wrong, relax, it's cool, as you say no one has sent you a PM or anything, we's good :) )


Thank you for your message, and I am trying to be patient, it's just that this has never happened to me on AW before. I thought I was getting along with everyone and then this happens. Thank you for being so nice to me even though like this person said, I don't deserve it.

Magali.
 

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After a day of staring at a screen and nothing coming out of my brain but gibberish, I'm ready to believe that English isn't my language at all, much less a first, second or fifth language. (I ain't gonna git into numberin'.)

Everyone take a chill pill and remember this is AW, which is better than all the other boards out there.

MagaliFuentes--pick a book you absolutely have to write, something that you are excited about. Polish, get it beta-read, shop it to death, work on book 2 while it's making the rounds so your head doesn't explode.

Waiting to finish 10 books first isn't how it's done. It just delays one's career. Each book is a learning experience.

Now, go to this page, print the essay there, tape it over your desk, and read it every day before you start writing.

That goes for the rest of you, too.

I'm going to read it again now just to get out of this slump I'm in today.
 
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After a day of staring at a screen and nothing coming out of my brain but gibberish, I'm ready to believe that English isn't my language at all, much less a first, second or fifth language. (I ain't gonna git into numberin'.)

Everyone take a chill pill and remember this is AW, which is better than all the other boards out there.

MagaliFuentes--pick a book you absolutely have to write, something that you are excited about. Polish, get it beta-read, shop it to death, work on book 2 while it's making the rounds so your head doesn't explode.

Waiting to finish 10 books first isn't how it's done. It just delays one's career. Each book is a learning experience.

Now, go to this page, print the essay there, tape it over your desk, and read it every day before you start writing.

That goes for the rest of you, too.

I'm going to read it again now just to get out of this slump I'm in today.


Thanks. I entered the link and since I don't have a printer, I put it in my favorites. :)
 

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gillhoughly,

thank you for that article.

It has made me feel better about not working on a tough point in my WIP today and instead writing a much more enjoyable, if less sensible, piece.
 
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