Publishers don't really care about first publication rights for novels. They care about finding books they can sell. That likely means either a book that's been a success and still has the potential to be a bigger success, or a book that's good but hasn't really sold, so there's still a market for it.
1. People who've been fairly successful as self-publishers, then sold their book to a publisher. 2. People who've been a dismal failure as self-publishers, then pulled the book and sold it to a publisher. Can't really think of anyone in the middle, though a few people have said they've been contacted by fairly dubious-looking agents when they're selling a modest number of self-published books. But if a publisher thinks you've got a good book that's in their market and you haven't sold enough copies to make a real dent in that market, why would they turn their nose up just because it's been self-published?
Do you have examples of this category? Actually, I'm not sure about the first category either, but that involves quibbling about the definition of "fairly successful", so I can at least think of examples to argue about. I'd argue that The Martian was wildly successful for a self-published book, for example. I can't think of any examples for the second category.
TOR explicitly states in their submission guidelines that "Tor.com does not accept works that have been previously published elsewhere, in any venue. This includes all forms of digital self-publishing." So I would imagine if they took the effort to put it up front like that, then it's a pretty decent to assume that they do care and probably for good reason.
People posting on writing forums over the last few years. I don't have the time to go back and hunt out their posts, particularly as many were probably on a forum where writers have been mass-deleting their accounts lately.
Tor also thinks that not letting libraries buy their ebooks until readers have lost all enthusiasm for reading the books is a good business model. I should have said sensible publishers are just looking for books they can sell.
Sure, but you said it in response to "do you have anything to back it up with?" and, well, it seems that you don't.
Well, they've been in the publishing business longer than I have, so I'm going to have to defer to them.
Mathew Reilly self published 'conquest' - then got his book deal for 'Ice station' off the back of someone from his eventual publisher picking up conquest to read on a plane (this was before kindle was really a thing)... after he'd had some success with Ice station, Temple and so on they then published 'conquest' without caring about first rights The same was true for Stuart McBride with 'Halfhead' (although I think he only got his agent off of them reading halfhead rather than an actual deal ... that agent advised him to stop messing with SciFi and write some crime... the result was Cold Granite and the other ten or eleven books in that series ... his publisher then picked halfhead up as well However I'd agree that its fairly rare, and certainly not justified as a sweeping statement that publishers don't care about first rights That said my view is that self publishing is a viable route in and of itself - its not about getting noticed by trad pub (and may well not be a good route for that with the exception of the amazon imprint)
Genre can be a pivotal consideration when looking at self-publishing. For example, if you write in a very niche genre, it's often not realistic to waste time with large publishers or agents. There will be some specialist small press operations, but you have to consider what they will do for you. In many cases, the only thing they offer is that readers of their genre will be aware of their catalogue. The downside is they'll take a higher cut, rely on you to do much of the marketing push, and will often let the book go out of print if sales are slow without returning the rights. They'll own them, so you can't complain. If you can access the reader-base for your genre, then self-publishing makes a lot of sense. You can do it badly, but despite what some say it is possible to produce a well-edited, well-marketed, well-designed book and sell it successfully. You have to put the work in, and it's not easy, but if you have ambition, persistence and a bit of backbone, and take a pride in what you produce, self-publishing can often be a superior choice.
My understanding is that they'll own them in those circumstances only if you accepted a really bad contract.
Yes. If you don't have a reversion if they let the book go out of print, at the very least, that's a bad contract imo.
Agreed; all the contracts I've signed so far revert rights to me if my publisher allows the book to go out of print.
