10:11:22 PM

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I’m working this week to prepare for the new year so that come 2016 I’m ready to finalize several works and start uploading them.

I’m already exhausted sending queries out to agents and I’m still vacillating between sticking it out or just going for it – self-publishing. Let’s face it, agents get thousands of manuscripts every year, and if they are open to it, in a good mood, business is good, and willing to look beyond some imperfections in delivery, then I may have a chance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m trying to ‘meet’ the requirements but I also want the agent to know who they will be working with. Maybe it’s faulty thinking on my part, of course I made a few ‘bloopers’ in my first set of queries :p

There are some people who say try agents first. To treat my story like part of my business, and I do that already. But that also applies even more so to the self-publishing model.

So, I wonder how many agents should I apply to (there’s around 200 + for science fiction), receive rejection letters that agents DON’T put a lot of time and effort into, before I get so disheartened that I don’t even want to look at my story anymore? I don’t expect a personal email back, but a nicely written generic one would be appreciated.

Right, so maybe I’m a bit grumpy about this whole thing and just need to make a decision. Vacillating can be one of the worse places, but I try to use it to do the research and make an educated choice.

It’s always annoyed me that people turn their noses up at self-publishing. I like to think of it as thousands of small business ventures reaching out to the population – they will tell you soon enough if your story is good or bad. I dislike the ‘big corporation’ attitude in publishing, and they have changed over the years mostly good, and I do see why writers want the prestige and freedom to ‘just write’.

The thing I do believe in – is quality.

So, if you choose to self-publish do some research about quality because it’ll help with your reputation as a writer. Think of it like a business, and look at risk of reputation. Do a good job from the start, and build your name with ‘quality’ ideals.