Which should come first before self publishing a novel?

Question

Pls arrange in orders: a) have it edited by a proffesional editor b) hire an agent c) have your copyrights d)have an isbn number? happy new year, guys!

Answer 1

It's not so much "hiring" an agent - more like crossing your fingers and hoping against all odds that an agent will like your work enough to want to represent you!

Answer 2

Mark, you don't seem to understand how self-publishing works. Or copyright law. Or literary agents.

So now's the time to pause, take a deep breath, and educate yourself before you make an expensive mistake.

Are you sure paying to publish is the way to go? You do know that most self-published books sell between 40 and 75 copies, total, no matter what the author does to promote it? You know that the cost of editors and vanity publishing could easily run you a couple thousand dollars? You'll have more fun flushing one-dollar bills down the toilet singly. IMO, and end up at about the same place.

Editors work by the page or the hour. Prepare to pay for their expertise.

Agents get paid by taking a percentage of the sale price to a legitimate publisher. Agents who want any money directly from you, for any reason, are not real agents.

You don't need an agent to pay to publish anyway.

You have a copyright the moment your work is saved to any fixed medium, from your hard drive to paper to a cocktail napkin. You can register that copyright, but theft is extremely rare. If your book isn't of such a quality that publishers will pay you rather than the other way around, nobody's going to want to steal it.

[I don't know about ISBNs, but I hope you'll reconsider paying to publish.]

Answer 3

the order would be A) C) then get it published then D) if you can get it

why would you pay some one money to represent you to hire a publishing house to print your book? if you can land an agent you don't need to self publish, you need to go after real publisher and stay out of the pay to play publishing market cause the self publishers don't care what you give them to publish, you can hand them your name writen on a napkin and if you are willing to pay to have it printed they will print it, it soulds like your overkilling a novel that no stores would carry and would be difficult to sell without spending alot of money (if you self publish that is)

Answer 4

b. a. c. d.
agents help you throughtout the whole process so i would get one first, i would probably edit my work before i got it copyrighted so i can worry about someone stealing some actually grammar improved stuff, and the d is really not important until all the other stuff is done ;)