Although the majority of my author clients choose to self-publish their book, there are still a fair amount of authors who want to keep their options open. These are the authors who still aren’t 100% certain whether they want to pursue traditional publishing or self-publishing. Can you traditionally publish your book after self-publishing it? The short answer: In most cases, no. Here’s why.
If you’ve self-published a book, things can go two ways: either you’ll sell many copies (via a great storyline, expert editing, and superb marketing) . . . or your book won’t sell many copies. Whether or not your self-published book is a success will depend on your chances of being picked up by a traditional publishing house.
In most cases, your self-published book must be a hit for traditional publishing houses to consider representing your work—think selling 70,000 copies, as literary agent Michelle Brower says. Yes, your self-published book has to be thatsuccessful in order for a traditional publishing company to consider picking it up.
Taking a Shot at Traditional Publishing
To be picked up by a publishing house, first you’ll have to craft a query letter and secure agent representation, then the agent will secure your book a deal with a traditional publisher. You’ll need to prove that your book has market potential, and having an online presence is a great help to securing your book deal. Again, this option is advised only for big-selling self-published books.
When you craft your query letter, you must be upfront and mention that the book is, or has been, self-published. In most cases, publishers will frown at knowing that the book has already been available for sale. This is because, generally speaking, the publishing company wants to make as much money on the book as possible, and will shy away from books that have already been available to the market. But if you can convince the publisher that your book is—and will continue to be—a seller, you have a shot at traditional publishing.
Rebranding for a Second Chance
But what if your self-published book hasn’t sold more than a few copies? If you’ve self-published your book but sales haven’t been great, and you want to pursue traditional publishing instead, you have options.
Step one: Immediately unpublish the book (you can do this on the Kindle Direct Publishing dashboard, or on whichever platform you self-published your book). In your query letter, you need to mention that the book has been self-published at one time, but is no longer available to the public. This method works best if you also choose to make big changes to the book, such as changing or improving the story, or publishing under a different title or author name (known as rebranding).
If the book hasn’t sold well before, agents and publishers want to know why—and they want to be assured that things have changed and the book will sell this time around. These are good things to mention in the query letter.
The Bottom Line
There are so many self-published books on the market today that it’s difficult to stand out and sell thousands of copies, and the vast majority don’t have a chance at traditional publishing. (For the self-published books that don’t sell, unfortunately it’s unlikely that traditional publishers would be interested in representing your book.)
But . . . there have been a few exceptions to this rule, of course, like Hugh Howey’s Wool (great book, by the way!), which was so popular as a self-published book (selling 30,000 copies in a month, becoming an Amazon bestseller in several categories) that it was picked up by Simon & Schuster, republished under their brand, and is now being jockeyed for movie rights.
While this is the type of fairy-tale ending every self-published author wants, though, the key word here is RARE—as in, once you self-publish the book, it’s rare that a traditional publishing company will be interested in your work.
Proceed with caution! Usually, self-publishing means never looking back.
Book editor Kristen Hamilton is the owner and sole employee of Kristen Corrects, Inc., where she provides manuscript editing services for traditionally and self-publishing authors. Several authors whose books she has edited have won awards and have topped Amazon’s best sellers lists.
Reading is Kristen’s passion, so when the workday is over, she can usually be found curled up with a good book alongside her four cats. She loves watching cat videos and scary movies, eating pizza, teaching herself French, and traveling, and she is likely planning her next vacation. She lives outside of Boise, ID.
I am an author of three books all self-published. My third book entitled Three Rims and a Hubcap by Gentile has been a terrific seller. It made Walmart Best Seller list. I am a pastor of a large congregation in North Carolina, a jazz pianist with a published cd called the Renaissance Lifestyle on Spotify, Apple Music and many others. I have a regional weekly telecast called Social Perspectives on WBTW-13 a CBS affiliate. I have written the sequel to Three Rims and a Hubcap with quite a large readership awaiting to read it. I have not published it yet because I m trying to get traditional representation for this one. Feel free to look up some the reviews on this book. A production company is currently working on a film about Three Rims and A Hubcap. I am just lost about which way I should proceed with this sequel. Please advise, and I understand your services are not free. I hope we can come to terms about the publishing of this sequel which is called, The Cat Bones and A Strange Man, it is approximately 90k words of intrigue, twists, and thrilling turns. Its ending is totally unexpected, and jaw dropping. Thank you very much. Please contact me at your convenience. Gentile
Hi Gentile! Congratulations on your success with your third book – that’s great! It sounds like you have a fabulous platform, too. Because of your platform and your success with Three Rims and a Hubcap, I’d say try for traditional publishing – the worst that can happen is agents/publishers can say no. Make sure you have certain elements in place, like a well-written query letter, an author website, and a way for people to follow you (such as social media pages or an email newsletter). Feel free to shoot me an email at kristen@kristencorrects.com or use the “Contact” option here on my website to message me if you’d like to chat further about this.