This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Caroline Hogg has worked in publishing for almost ten years, at Little, Brown Book Group and more recently at Avon, HarperCollins. She’s currently at Pan Macmillan as Senior Commissioning Editor for Commercial Women’s Fiction. She knows her stuff!
Today’s question comes from a Novelicious reader who asks:
I have self published my book and was wondering if this will put editors off?
Caroline says: Lots of successful self-published authors are being signed by ‘traditional’ publishing houses – esteemed Novelicious founder Kirsty being one of them! So it’s definitely not going to put editors off if you self-publish but it’s important how you do it and the standards you achieve. Invest time and money in the copyediting, proofreading, cover design and formatting to make sure your book looks as professional as possible. If you can attract lots of readers to your book, it’s going to be a massive help in convincing publishers there’s a large market for it out there. But if you put out something that looks half-arsed (forgive my French), then a publisher might assume your commitment and talent are the same.
Have a writing or publishing related question for Caroline? Just email a question to kirsty@writingtipsoasis.com, ask on our Facebook or Twitter or just leave a comment below!