Finally, your manuscript is alive and e-published. You dream of a miracle happening and that book sales will catapult you into the best seller stratosphere. Surely now, you’ll pick up an agent and publisher. After friends and family have purchased your book, you anxiously wait to see if anyone else is out there; and you become so amazed and grateful when some people who are unknown to you buy the book and leave comments. And then, slowly the initial interest in your work wanes. Disappointment sets in. You know what you’ve written is a good story but even you are honest enough to admit that it’s not the ‘Great American Novel’. You begin to doubt and vow never to write again. Good thing for you that that feeling only lasts for about a day.
What would make the difference? It doesn’t take long to know that if you had: an editor, agent and publisher to get your book out there, the chances are good that it would be reviewed by the best book-critics. That should result in your book being read by a larger audience. And of course, then, enough sales would be made to support your lifestyle . . . well, enough to at least allow you to write without the guilt of not earning minimum wage. Discouraging! Not enough to stop writing.
Every writer should be encouraged by the fact that the brilliant and wonderful JK Rowling, using a pseudonym—while still having an editor, agent and publisher for her well reviewed ‘ The Cuckoo’s Calling’—could not garner more than 1,500 sales without the aid of a marketing machine.
So my question to you is: Should we concentrate our efforts on securing media-marketing professionals rather than pursuing literary agents or publishers?
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