I have been told that agents and publishers don’t like accepting manuscripts from previously self published authors. I asked this of my editor, who told me that this isn’t true. It gave me hope to keep on trying.
When I first self published my first book, ‘Sticks and Stones’, I was living in an ideal world. I thought by paying someone to edit and publish my book, I could pass on a positive message, that bullying is never okay.
It wasn’t my best writing, I know that now. I thought by paying the money I would get a great editing service. I got a half hearted attempt at editing at best. At worst, my money went down the drain so fast I had no chance at recouping my losses. I won’t name the company because there are many like them out there. As an author it is up to you, but I would advise never to go to any vanity publishing company.
I can’t even go back to look at my first book, but I have used it as a learning curve.
At least with KDP I have control over my own writing, but the one thing I have learnt is never self edit. We are too close to our own work. Finding someone else to read, whether it be an editor, or a beta reader, is important. From sentence structure to plot, you will miss things.
Would I love for an agent or publisher to give me a deal – of course I would. I will still send new manuscripts in the hope someone will reply. Until then I will keep on writing, work hard, and not take shortcuts.
My writing is important and it is through hard work we can achieve our goals.
Writer Ravenclaw 
I appreciate your advice about getting some sort of editor. It is amazing how our brains can fix sentences and fill in holes in our writing just because we know what we want things to say. All the time I look back at something and see all the typos! I swear they weren’t there before. Thanks for sharing!
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No worries. It still amazes me I can read through the same document and still find different mistakes. It is annoying especially when I think I’m looking at one paragraph at a time.
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Wise words I think, although never having been published I am not speaking with any authority! 😂
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Wishing you all the best my friend
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I agree. Self-editing never works out well. You need the trained eye of an expert to see what you could never see. I would even go so far as to say people who edit for a living would also need to get an outside editor.
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Yes, even editors cannot read their own work.
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Gosh, I was told that you never, ever pay an editor up front.
The thing with self-publishing is that it displays tenacity – the author has jumped through all these hoops to see their book in print – but it’s no guarantee of quality. I mean, even if the author is picked up by a publisher, they’re looking at sellability rather than quality. But I’d assume there is some correlationbetween the two.
In saying all this, I’ve never seen any of *your* books, btw.
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I thought I put that in the post. No, you don’t pay an editor up front. You send them a sample chapter, then see if you are the best fit to work with them. I know there are many scammers out there. I was lucky. The editor I used was part of my writing group. I didn’t pay for the first round, and she charged a lot less for the second. Having said that it needed to be line edited, but I ran out of money. I’ve had good feed back so far on my second book. Sales are slow, but then I’m not a well known author. I’ve heard horror stories of new authors paying thousands for editing. Absolutely no way to that. I saw on a Facebook page post one writer paid 5000 dollars. That is way too much.
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