Does self-publishing a book hurt your chances of getting published by a company?
I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month, and if I win, I can get my book published by CreateSpace for free. It would be self-published, not by a real publishing company. Does anyone know if self-publishing this book would hurt my chances of getting an agent and getting my book published?
Here is an excerpt from Noah Lukeman’s free e-book, Ask a Literary Agent. He answers this exact question from the perspective of a literary agent (because he is one):
“Understandably, authors worry that self-publishing their book with a print on demand (POD)
service could end up hurting them in the long run. They worry that an assigned ISBN could track
their book’s sales, and that if sales are weak, a future publisher will reject future books based on their track record.
But there is nothing to fear. Publishers are sophisticated enough to differentiate whether an author’s
prior books sold poorly as a result of being published in a POD format or as a result of being
published by a major publisher. If an author’s books were published by a major publisher and sold
poorly, then yes, this would be a major problem for a future acquiring editor. But if the poor sales
were the result of a POD edition, then all is forgiven, and the author is treated as if he had never been published at all. And if the sales were strong, the POD edition can become an asset.
This has been my experience as a literary agent. I also discussed this question with an editor at a
major publishing house, and he concurred.”