NOTE: This is part 2 of 2 of an update on where I am in my efforts to move my books from independently published to traditionally published. If you are new to my blog, you may want to go back and read the previous post.

I have tried three different times to publish this post, which, I hope, explains the gap in activity. I continue to struggle with technical glitches since I started with this new platform. After some research, I hope I’ve narrowed at least part of the problem to the template I was using for my page. I was not the only person with the problem of typing a blog post, only to realize the site has been stuck in an endless loop of trying to autosave and, therefore, all the work I had just put in was lost forever, as the only way out of the loop was to close the page. So, if you’ve been on my page before, you may notice things look slightly different. That’s because I’ve switched to a different, hopefully less glitchy, template.

At any rate, some more things have changed since my last post. Well, one more thing has changed. I subscribe to a group on Facebook for Ohio Writers. That’s because, though my books are set in West Virginia and much of my life (work, church, family, etc.) takes place in West Virginia, I live in the glorious small town of Marietta, Ohio. A few days ago, someone posted to that organization’s page about being a newly minted agent. This person then took on a rather pedantic, scolding tone to chide people who have independently published books and then tried to shop them to agents. She said we should know better because it just doesn’t happen, with extremely rare exceptions. Once a book has been self-published by the author, the opportunity for traditional publishing is lost forever.

At first, all of the responses were positive, thanking the person for dashing their hopes. They didn’t say that, but it’s what they meant. Thanks for the information, thanks for letting us know, thanks for saying the thing we’ve been dreaming of and working toward for years isn’t going to happen. Yeah, I made that last one up. The original poster used as an example the author who had queried agents for SIX YEARS before losing hope and self-publishing. Not six agents, not six months. Six years. She then said if the author had just kept trying and not self-published, they could have had an agent. Eventually. Maybe.

As time went on, though, the responses grew in frustration. One responder spoke eloquently of the ridiculousness of such an antiquated system that keeps books out simply because they have been self-published without even considering the books on their merits. The comparison to the old idea that only virginal women were considered marriage material was powerful, pointing out how agents and publishers were passing up the chance to publish some amazing books simply because those books were not virgin material but were, in the eyes of the elite gatekeepers, the whores of the publishing world.

I’m not sure it helped change the system, but it felt good to read someone state so perfectly the frustration many authors who have published independently feel. In my case, as is true with literally thousands of authors, it was after a long, arduous attempt to find an agent who would represent me and getting an actual human, non-automated response from maybe two out of over a hundred, that I finally agreed with the growing voice coming from independent authors saying that the deck is too stacked against the little guy, so I may as well just give up and try my hand at independent publication. Had I known what I know now, would I do it the way I did it? Probably not. But is it fair to eliminate me from even being considered simply because I’ve attempted to publish on my own even if my books are worthy of traditional publication. The answer is a resounding no. Does that matter? I guess I’ll find out.

I hope the publishing world is changing, becoming more open to the possibility that there is money to be made off of books that were previously published independently, beyond the select few that sold so many books on their own that the big houses had no choice but sign them. There have to be excellent, marketable books out there in the indie world that are failing not because they’re bad books but are instead great books written by people who need help marketing them, the very kind of help a publishing house can give. Are my books some of those? I’d really like to think so. And I’m going to keep trying until I can find an agent and/or publisher who agrees with me.