To Self-publish or submit to an agent...
And at those points in life- one can be struck by a wave of tumultuous emotion which creates a state of static Nervosia-Indecisionitis, leaving one frozen like a blipped computer screen.
I have come to such a state. Frozen with indecision, unable to choose which course to take. Should I self-publish or send to an agent?
Sending to an agent or a publishing company can take a length of time stretching from mere weeks to 1-2years of waiting for a response back depending on the publishing company and the agent. And, often, these agents and publishers do not want manuscripts which have been sent to any other agent or publisher. This increases the time spent searching for agents and publishers two-fold.
Self-publishing has the definite, immediate, self-gratifying benefit of being available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on holidays, on sick-days, no vacation breaks at all: It all depends on YOU.
J.A. Konrath would tell us all to self-publish. He said something very apt in his blogpost What, Me Debate? describing his disinterest in participating in a debate hosted by Seattle Times:
J.A. Konrath, who has sold over 800,000 ebooks--the vast majority via Amazon--told me he had no interest in participating in this discussion because he doesn't expect the Seattle Times to be around for much longer. He said, and I quote, 'People paying to get their news delivered via dead trees? That's so 2002.' He also said, 'They won't print my quote. But I'm not hurt by this, because pretty soon they aren't going to be printing anything.
And this is on the heals of a major lawsuit and scandal against five major publishing companies w....
But prodigies are rare. If they weren't, would Amanda Hocking's success be such an inspiration to those of us who dream of actually paying off our debts? And even she went off into the lovely horizon which all self-published authors secretly dream of coming to: Being traditionally published.
As Scott Nicholson says so well in a guestpost HERE,:
I know three people who will make six figures off their self-published work this year. One is Joe Konrath, always held up as the exception but he’s only an exception because he quickly figured out every writer is an exception.
The problem is this: How does one become the exception?
For now, I think I'm going to try submitting this manuscript. But never fear! If all fails on that score- self-publishing is available to me every day of every week.
