Hi EW

Wish I had the right skills to be an agent...not there at this point (smile).

I attended an Expert's Academy bootcamp (with Brendon Burchard, who wrote "Life's Golden Ticket") and had a chance to hear an agent talk about what it takes to get and work with an agent. I learned a lot about how to partner with an organization to create a top selling book and do some unique things to get your book "out there" and selling well. There are specific agents for specific genres and you would need to do the research to find the right one for your type of book.

There are questions of ownership...for example, the original version of The Passion Test was self published. The authors could give away as many copies as they liked, title the way the wished, etc. The retained complete control and paid someone to print it. The next edition was picked up by a "name" publisher after seeing the success of the self published edition. They don't "allow" free copies to be given away, had control over the final title/subtitle, and various other tidbits.


It is a bit much to type here...being lazy I guess. Smile.

JJ is right on the nose with her comments about YOU being the marketing arm...I published a techie book with a well known tech publisher and got zip, nada, zipola help in the marketing area (was new at the time)...then they dropped the book when it didn't sell. I had tried to suggest a different approach when we started and they didn't listen.

I just talked to a friend of mine about her self-published book. With all costs rolled in (she purchased 300 physical copies as part of her contract), she estimates her investment to be $20-30,000 US. That includes end-to-end costs (including some training on how to partner with companies).

Depending on how you do things, self-publishing *can* be less expensive. And there are lots of questions to ask/answer before making a final decision.

Like JJ, I don't want to be discouraging...far from it and, like JJ again, I've been through at least some of this personally and have been through the situation with others I know who've written materials for publication...fiction and non-fiction.

BTW, when are we going to do that Skype call? Grin.

You say it is a fiction novel and too hard to self-publish from Germany. Could you clarify?