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Agents and self-published books

Posted: October 24th, 2012, 12:06 pm
by Daryl_Blonder
OK, I know this topic has been dealt with on here before, but I have my own set of circumstances, so I wanted to start my own thread...

I came very close to landing an agent for my memoir of life with autism, but didn't. I self-published it on Amazon in September of 2011. I designed the cover and back, the jacket text, the website text, everything. My website for the book is www.aspieconfession.com.

As anyone can see in the “In The Press” section, I did manage to get some decent coverage here in Connecticut in newspapers and local television stations. You can read the articles and watch the interviews. I’ve also done a lot of book talks and signings. Feedback has been very positive. So I guess it did do fairly well, so far as a self-published work goes, and my Amazon sales rank once hovered around 15,000 for a brief time after one of the TV spots (9,900 on Kindle). But according to stats I've seen on how many self-published books need to be sold to get represented, it hasn't done that well, I guess; I've got at most about 500 copies, bound and Kindle, floating around out there.

What exactly is the ideal procedure for querying an agent regarding a self-published work? What should I say and what shouldn’t I say? Do I stand a chance? Does anyone know of any agencies that specialize in this? What motivation would they have for representing me?

Re: Agents and self-published books

Posted: October 26th, 2012, 4:24 pm
by RBSHoo
Hi Daryl

Agent Janet Reid just wrote a blog post about this very thing, as she wrote that she has seen a spike in authors who've self-published and are seeking agents. Here is the link.

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/201 ... mbers.html