Thank you for sharing, Tabris. Supposedly I am making good traction in my querying, but I still think it still such a longshot of securing a book offer in the end. I've looked at the stats on QT and it appears most agents offer rep to about 1-6% of the authors from whom they have requested partials or fulls. So even if one has, say, ten or so fulls and partials with agents, the chances are still not high of securing an offer.
And then I've read that agents only place about 10-70% of the books they try to sell. Lastly, once you sell the book, only the top 1-5% receive meaningful marketing muscle from the publisher, so one has to still invest a lot of time, energy, and resources into marketing the book. In spite of all this, we all query and supplicate because there must be few truly extraordinary things to experience in life than a Big 4 publishing your book. Perhaps only your first kiss, wedding day, and first childbirth may surpass this emotion. I can only imagine for now...
Nonetheless, while I continue to query like a madman, I am preparing myself emotionally and intellectually for the possibility of launching an imprint to self-publish my current and future books. It does look like a lot of hard work but also much fun and learning to be had as well.
Tabris, I will hit you up via PM with some questions if you don't mind. I don't want to steer this chat down an entirely different path unless others here are eager as well to hear about your self-publishing journey.
Wow, this article is quite the eye-opener. Makes me wonder why we all just don't self-publish with the aid of some top freelance editors, book cover designers, marketers, etc...
That's the route I've taken, and it's marvelous fun.
