Video summary
Jackie, a soon-to-be published author, explains her journey from aspiring to traditional publication with her debut novel, *Powerless*, to ultimately deciding on self-publishing. For three years, she held the belief that rejection by agents or publishers was a definitive sign that her book lacked quality, leading her to query over eighty times without success. This mindset caused her to set the manuscript aside in favor of writing more marketable projects, a common strategy for authors hoping to break into the industry. However, this perspective shifted dramatically when she won an award for *Powerless* at a writing conference, followed by positive feedback from an independent publisher and an editor with traditional publishing experience. Even her acceptance into a prestigious writing retreat, where faculty members included people she had previously queried and been rejected by, served as crucial validation that the book was indeed good enough to publish, effectively dismantling her initial fear of rejection.
The second major factor in her decision-making process was the need for marketing support, which she initially thought traditional publishers would provide. Jackie had previously run a self-publishing company for entrepreneurs, where books were used as free business tools rather than products to be sold; consequently, she never learned how to market fiction for profit. When she realized that traditional publishing offers limited marketing assistance for new authors, she took the initiative to create a comprehensive marketing plan on her own. This process involved researching over three hundred influencers, understanding Amazon ads, and setting up accounts like NetGalley. Creating this plan revealed that the complexities of book marketing were not as daunting as she feared, giving her a concrete starting point and confidence that she could successfully launch her book without relying on a traditional publisher's promotional machinery.
Ultimately, Jackie chose to self-publish *Powerless* because waiting for a traditional deal no longer made sense for her long-term career goals. She recognized that becoming a sustainable, working author requires a backlist of books to generate ongoing income, as readers who discover one title are likely to explore the rest of an author's catalog. By releasing *Powerless* this year, she can begin building that essential library immediately, turning what felt like a terrifying leap into an exciting opportunity for growth. Although a part of her still wonders if she should hold onto the manuscript to write something else for traditional publication later, she concludes that delaying release would only stall her progress as an author. With the book scheduled for release on June 13th, Jackie embraces the challenge of self-publishing, confident in her ability to produce and market her work while starting the vital journey toward financial stability in the writing industry.
Read the full video transcript
hello if you are new here my name is
Jackie I'm a soon to be published author
if you are not new here welcome back
it's great to see you again
so as I mentioned I am a soon to be
published author my first novel
powerless is going to be coming out on
June 13th of this year
I'm hoping there will be pre-order links
ready by the time this video comes out
if they are they will be in the
description if not stay tuned for the
next video they'll be added then so I
wanted to do a video to explain why I
decided to self-publish because I was
someone who never thought I would
self-publish fiction and there are a
number of reasons why um other authors
might want to get traditionally
published it might be they're not sure
how to produce a book they don't have
the budget to do it themselves
for me the biggest pieces were
validation and marketing support so
let's look at each of those the biggest
reason I wanted to get traditionally
published was because I felt like if my
book wasn't accepted by an agent or a
publisher then it wasn't good enough to
get published that was that and if it
wasn't good enough to get published that
was fine it just meant I would need to
write another book and the truth is that
there are other reasons Beyond quality
why a book is rejected it could be that
the agent or publisher doesn't know how
to Market it it could be that there are
similar books on an agents or editors
list and they don't have space for
another one that's like yours it could
be that they just have too many books at
the moment so they're not taking queries
or they don't have room for another
client and none of these reasons have
anything to do with the quality of the
books so having this blanket belief that
not getting a traditional publishing
deal means my book's not good enough
isn't actually true yet I spent most of
the last three years believing that so
to give you some context I wrote the
first draft of powerless at the end of
2019 I revised it over the next year or
so and I think it was April 2021 when I
started sending out queries over the
next year and a half
I send over 80 queries and this was to
both agents and independent Publishers
of those 80 queries almost all of them
either rejected me or just didn't
respond I did get one request from an
agent who then rejected the book once
she saw the full thing which was
that was not a good day and I had one
independent publisher who was interested
in working together but I decided it
didn't feel like a fit basically I'd
been getting all of this feedback from
the market that the book wasn't good
enough and it shouldn't be published and
until August 2022 my thought process was
this isn't the book for now and I love
this book I've done a lot of work on
this book I've had beta readers I've had
critiques I've had a lot of people see
it and give feedback I still like it
when I go back to it but clearly it's
not good enough or not marketable or
people don't have space for a book like
this so I'll just put it to the side and
my plan was to put powerless to the side
and work on something else that was more
marketable and then once I got the
future agent or publisher
I would say okay and how about this for
book two or book three or book four
because one of the things I noticed with
like superhero books that were
traditionally published is that unless
they're tied to a property like DC or
Marvel they don't tend to be an author's
debut usually they've got a few books
out already and then they do the
superhero one so I thought okay maybe
like I've got this written now but it
can be a later book and that was my plan
until August when I actually won an
award for this book in fact do I have
the medal
yeah it's that one so I um as part of my
querying journey I entered powerless in
a bunch of competitions for unpublished
novels thinking that it might help get
the attention of an agent or publisher
and one of these competitions was from a
conference called killer Nashville which
is mostly for like crime and mystery
type of books but they also allow books
with elements of suspense so mine like
I'm like well it has elements of
suspense so I might as well submit it
and actually one in the y a category so
I had planned to put this book to the
side and then I got this validation that
I was looking for which was oh maybe
maybe this is good enough and the reason
it isn't getting picked up isn't because
of the quality it's because of those
other reasons I mentioned earlier it's
because of the marketability or
something else and what's funny is that
after I won this competition I started
getting other forms of validation not a
contract obviously but I had that
independent publisher who was interested
in the book it is currently shortlisted
for another competition for unpublished
books I ended up working freelance with
an editor from a company that only hires
people with traditional publishing
backgrounds and he thought it was in
great shape and that it was something I
should try publishing myself and getting
that feedback from someone with the
traditional publishing background was
really encouraging for me and then
the final piece of validation was I
actually applied to join a writing
Retreat which is coming up in March and
you needed to submit a 3 000 word sample
for that and what was interesting is the
faculty who are reviewing these like
samples for the program everyone on the
faculty is someone I queried or someone
from an agency I queried who rejected
the book but I did the sample from
powerless and I said and at this point I
was like okay I think I'm gonna
self-publish but I'm not quite sure so
if I get this one thing if I get into
this program then that's a sign and I
got into the program so the first thing
I was looking for from traditional
publishing which was the validation is
this good enough to publish I managed to
get elsewhere I got through the
competitions and through the editor and
um through my getting into this program
so I was like okay first check box done
the next reason I was interested in
working with the traditional publisher
was for the marketing support now when
it comes to producing a book I'm very
comfortable with that I actually used to
have my own self-publishing company for
entrepreneurs so that means I know how
to publish a book like I have cover
designers that I've worked with before I
have editors I've worked with before I
know how to set up a book as an ebook
and print on demand so I didn't have a
learning curve that I was worried about
it was purely the marketing because the
books I published in the past they
weren't written to be sold if that makes
sense so the way it worked was if you're
an entrepreneur and you're writing a
book as a business tool you're really
planning to use that because of business
card in that you will give the book away
to free to someone with the hope that
they become a ten thousand dollar client
so instead of like selling a book and
hoping to make 20 25 a book you're
giving the book away because it's part
of a sales strategy so that meant my
authors were never really worried about
Book Sales so we never had to market the
book as a book the book was like a
brochure for their business it was a
very different business model people by
contrast I'm now hoping to publish a
book as part of the author business
model which is about selling books the
book is the product and I wasn't sure
how to get people to buy my book so I
knew how to produce a book I just wasn't
sure how to Market a book and I really
thought
like I know there's a limit to what
traditional Publishers do in terms of
marketing especially for new unknown
authors but I thought at least having
someone to like ask is this something I
should be doing would be helpful
now then one of the independent
Publishers I queried in fact this was
the one who um was interested in working
with me they asked me to submit a
marketing plan as part of my query so
what I ended up doing was I made a list
of like over 300 different influences I
wanted to reach out to I learned about
Goodreads giveaways and Amazon ads and
looked at how you get a netgalley
account and all these different things
I'd heard of as part of the book
marketing process but because I was
planning to traditionally publish I
never really looked into it myself
because I knew that the publisher would
need to set up a lot of these accounts
and what happened somewhat finally is by
the time I finished the marketing plan I
went oh this doesn't feel that
complicated like maybe I could do this
after all admittedly I have no idea if
it's gonna work I could just spend a
whole lot of money and nothing happens
but
I felt like before I did that marketing
plan I would have just been putting the
book out there and maybe doing some
Facebook ads and hoping it worked
whereas now I'm like okay I've got this
list of activities I'm going to do and
maybe it'll work or maybe it won't but
at least I feel like I have a starting
point so that was the other reason I
wanted to get traditionally published
and then when I felt like I'd figured it
out it's like oh well maybe I don't need
to get traditionally published after all
so I decided to self-publish the book
and there's still a part of me that goes
oh maybe I should wait maybe I should
just keep powerless in my back pocket
and write something else and get that
traditionally published but the more I
think about it the less sense it makes
to wait because ultimately I want to be
a working author and I know that a big
part of being a working author is having
more books out because when someone
finds one of your books they're more
likely to go back to your back list and
that's where you start to make an income
that only works if you have a backlist
so if I publish powerless this year then
I'm starting to build that Mac list
which is both terrifying and very
exciting so I don't know if that was
interesting but that is why I someone
who had hoped that this book would be
traditionally published and wanted to be
traditionally published for three years
decided to self-publish
and it's coming out on June 13th which
is very exciting very scary
if the pre-order is ready
links are below if not they'll be ready
next video so I will see you then