When is it time to just self publish?
To KDP, or not to KDP, that is the question.
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, when War Inc. was complete I tried to get a publisher. I submitted it to around 20 literary agents and sat back waiting for the offers to come flooding in. Needless to say, it didn’t happen, I got impatient and self published on Amazon KDP.
So when Ten Pound Note was finished I decided I should be a bit more restrained and to really give the literary agents route a proper try before admitting defeat and self publishing again. So thats what I’ve done. Over the course of several weeks I have submitted the book to (consults his Google spreadsheet….) 78 different agencies.
For each of those 78 I have tried different versions of the cover letter, sent various synopsis and tried to stand out from the crowd. All, so far, to no avail. There have been a couple of nibbles, two agents have asked for the full manuscript but nothing more after that. I’ve had some rejections but mostly its deafening silence.
The first batch of submissions, sent with naive optimism back in April, are about to pass the 90 day mark. This was the arbitrary line in the sand that I have decided means that the submission has been rejected and they couldn’t even be bothered to let me know. I will categorise these as “expired” rather than “rejected” in a vain hope than they might one day be successful.
With the oldest batch now about to shuffle off this mortal coil in to expiration, the last batch of submissions is still only 31 days old, having been submitted in the less optimistic but still “worth a shot” mid-June.
As far as I can see it there are two options. I can assume that all of the agents will either reject or expire and self publish now (after all it’s ready to go, I just need to press the button on KDP). Or I can wait another 59 days until the very last batch crosses the 90 mark and then hit the publish button. I am getting impatient again and not sure I want to put myself through another (consults his Google spreadsheet….) 56 rejections/expirations.
There is one more option of course. The Hail Mary, flight of fantasy, one-in-a-million option of one of the agents actually deciding to take me on. But thats too far fetched for even my over active imagination to entertain.