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Advice on Moving Forward

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fireflyz:
I think that ultimately, self publishing is not the way to go for a first time author.  If you want to try to sell a 12 book series, then make sure the first book could be a stand alone.  Mention in your query that it's a stand alone but you envision it broadening out into a series.  I truthfully don't believe that most people can start off with a 12 book series and do it justice.  THat doesn't mean you're one of those people, but it's something to consider.  Worse case scenario is there's no interest in it...you write other books, hone your craft, and one day when you get a sale you can go back to that series if you're still interested.  As someone who has written a few books that I envisioned as series' I have to admit a lot of times when you're done you realize it's not the ONE, haha.

Just to give you an idea, the agency I've been communicating with and getting some solid feedback from looked at over 15,000 queries last year, out of those they requested less than 100 full manuscripts and signed (I think) 6 authors.  I believe self publishing an unknown author would involve even longer odds.  So my question to you would be, have you tried to make it into that 100 full manuscripts.  Set aside being signed for the moment.  But if your work isn't able to attract that sort of attention, I don't believe it will do well self publishing.  And that's fine.  Writing is a lot of work over a lot of years for very little chance of being a commercial success.  Which is why you have to love writing for the sake of writing.  Pleasing yourself and no one else.

However you decide, I wish you luck.  Stephen King says writing a novel is like crossing the Atlantic alone in a bathtub, and he's right.  No matter what, just know that you only get better over time.

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