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Join any writers' forum and you'll hear people claim that being able to list self-published work on your resume helps open the doors to pubication with a mainstream publisher. Sadly, it's a myth.

All vanity presses, POD publishers and self-publishing houses will publish anything, provided the author is willing to pay. Some claim they vet or edit your work, but it's usually not much more than a smokescreen. Even the founder of Lulu.com admits they publish a lot of bad books (see http://www.publishersweekly.co m/article/CA6465530.ht ml)

Mainstream publishers know this. They know that getting your work self-published says nothing about how good a writer you are, so it doesn't impress them one iota.

The exception to this rule is if the book manages to sell in large numbers, in spite of the difficulty of marketing self-published work. There have been news reports of this happening, but it's because they're so rare that they make the news. And the magic figure seems to be about 5,000 copies, which is quite an achievement.

I knew that already. But what I found tantalising was a recent Helium forum where an agent said she "shies away from" authors who have self-published. That's more than just saying she ignores self-published work in assessing the author's submission. That's saying, being self-published is going to count AGAINST the author. And it's not the first time I've heard such a sentiment from agents and publishers.

That got me thinking - why should that be? Then I thought, perhaps it's because self-publishing a work says something about the writer's attitude?

When a manuscript is accepted by a mainstream publisher, the author's work is not finished. He or she will have to work for weeks or months with the publisher's editor to hone the novel until it shines. This is always one of the hardest times for an author, because criticism can be hard to take. And there will always be times when the author disagrees with what the editor wants - but in this case, the publishing house is paying the dollars, so usually, what they want is what they get.

You can imagine that this process requires the writer to have a certain degree of humility and a willingness to acknowledge their writing isn't perfect. A writer who self-publishes must think his work is pretty darn good. If that's the case, will he be too egotistical to take direction from an editor? Will he be willing to change what needs to be changed?

Of course, most self-published authors are not like that at all - but mainstream publishers get so many submissions, even a small doubt is enough to make them pass over a manuscript. So on balance, if you self-publish and can't boast big sales, think twice before you mention your secret to a mainstream publisher!

Learn more about this author, Marisa Wright.
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