Querying or self-publishing, and living with rejection

By R. S. Breed · Updated Sep 28, 2026

There are two main routes for a finished novel. You can query literary agents in the hope of a traditional publishing deal, or you can publish it yourself. Neither is the "real" way and neither is a fallback. They suit different books, different goals and different temperaments, and plenty of authors do both over a career.

This guide compares them plainly, explains how rejection works (it's quieter than most people expect), and covers the scams aimed at writers on both paths.

The two paths side by side

	Querying (traditional)	Self-publishing
Who pays for editing, cover, printing	The publisher	You
Who makes the decisions	Shared, with the publisher having the final say on much of it	You
How you're paid	An advance against royalties, then royalties if the advance earns out	Royalties from each sale, paid by each store or distributor
Time to publication	Long: finding an agent, then a publisher, then the production schedule	As fast as you can get the book ready
Bookshop and library reach	Strong, through the publisher's sales team	Possible, but harder, and mostly up to you
Marketing	Some publisher support; authors are still expected to do a lot	All yours
Rights	You license rights to the publisher under a contract	You keep them
Gatekeeping	Agents and editors decide whether the book is published	No one stops you, and no one vets it either

A few honest notes on each side.

Traditional publishing takes the financial risk off you, and gets you into bookshops in a way that is hard to do alone. But it's slow, it's selective, and a contract is a long-term commitment. Read every clause, especially on rights and reversion, or pay someone qualified to read it for you.

Self-publishing gives you control and speed, but you are the publisher. That means paying for editing and a cover, learning the stores, and doing the marketing. Income varies enormously. Written Word Media's 2025 survey of 1,346 authors, mostly self-published, found that 44% earned $100 (US) a month or less from their books, while 8% earned more than $10,000 a month. Backlist matters: in the same survey, authors with 25 or more books out had a median income of about $3,000 (US) a month.

How querying works

Finish and revise the book. Agents generally want a complete, polished manuscript for fiction.
Research agents who represent your genre and are open to queries. Look at who represents books like yours.
Write a query letter: a short pitch for the book, its word count and genre, and a line or two about you.
Prepare what they ask for, usually a synopsis and sample pages. Follow each agent's submission guidelines exactly.
Send in small batches rather than to everyone at once. If a first batch gets no requests, you can revise the query before the next.
If an agent offers representation, talk to them, ask questions, and let the other agents who have your manuscript know so they can respond.

The agent then works with you on the manuscript and submits it to publishers. A publisher deal isn't guaranteed even with an agent.

Rejection is normal, and mostly silent

Almost every author who queries gets rejected, many times. That includes authors who go on to have long careers.

What rejection usually looks like:

Silence. Many agents don't reply unless they're interested. If their guidelines say "no response means no", you won't hear anything at all.
Form rejections. A short, polite, general note. It tells you nothing about your book specifically.
Occasionally, personal feedback. Rarer, and worth taking seriously if you hear the same comment more than once.

Rejection often reflects things you can't see: the agent's list is full, they just signed something similar, or they don't think they can sell that genre right now. It is not a verdict on whether you can write.

Living with it

Track everything in a spreadsheet: agent, date sent, what you sent, response. It turns a vague cloud of "no" into data.
Decide your review point in advance. For example: after a batch with no requests for pages, look again at the query; after requests but no offers, look again at the manuscript.
Keep writing the next book. It gives you somewhere to put your attention, and if this one doesn't find a home, the next one might.
Find other writers. Critique groups and writing communities make the waiting less lonely, and fellow querying writers understand it in a way friends often don't.
Separate the book from yourself. A "no" is about one manuscript at one moment in one agent's business.

What legitimate agents charge

Agents traditionally earn a commission on the money they make for you, and nothing up front.

In July 2026 the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) updated its Canon of Ethics, the code its member agents agree to. The main points, from the AALA's own summary:

Reading fees are still banned. No member may charge a reading fee for evaluating work for possible representation.
Agents may now offer paid services, including editorial work for non-clients and services such as marketing, promotion or web design, for a fee agreed with the writer.
They may not steer querying writers into paying. If you approach an agent only for representation, they can't answer by directing you to pay for services instead.
Representation can't depend on buying services. A client can't be required to pay the agent, or anyone the agent refers them to, for other services.
Referral fees must be disclosed. If a third party is known to pay referral fees, the agent must tell you when they make the referral.

The change has been controversial. Writer Beware has warned that disclosure doesn't stop an agent pressuring a writer to buy in, and in September 2026 the agency Dystel, Goderich & Bourret left the AALA, calling the clause on paid editing for non-clients a conflict of interest. A commenter on Writer Beware's post suggested a useful test for any agency that sells services: ask who is paid when your book doesn't sell. If the answer is nobody, your interests line up. If it's the agency, they don't.

The AALA is a US body, but many Australian writers query US agents, so its code is a useful benchmark. The rule it kept is the one to hold on to: a legitimate agent does not charge you a fee to read or consider your work.

Impersonation scams

Scammers now pose as real agents and editors, and they are getting more convincing. Recent patterns reported by Writer Beware and the Authors Guild:

Fake Big Five editors emailing writers with praise for their book and asking whether they have an agent, then passing them to a fake agent and a paid "consultant".
Lookalike domains built on the names of real literary agencies, so the email address looks right at a glance.
Fake production companies and fake agents, including some operating in German.
Fake book festivals and fake interview or radio requests.

Scams aimed at writers do real damage. In 2026 the CEO of PageTurner Press pleaded guilty in a case involving nearly 900 writers and more than $48 million (US), and as part of his plea deal agreed to an order of about $48.7 million in restitution.

Red flags

Unsolicited contact from an agent or editor you never queried
Gushing praise that quotes plot details (easy to lift from a blurb or a query)
A Gmail address for a "company", or a web address that is close to, but not the same as, the real one
No money asked at first, then fees for things legitimate agents and publishers do for free
Payment by wire or bank transfer, or other methods that are hard to reverse
Pressure to act quickly

What to do

Don't reply from the email you received. Type the agency's or publisher's website address yourself and contact them through the details listed there.
Check the domain letter by letter.
Search the name with "Writer Beware" to see if it has been reported.
Report it: to Writer Beware (its only genuine address is beware@sfwa.org), to Scamwatch in Australia, or to the FBI's IC3 in the United States.

Self-publishing scams too

Self-publishing has its own traps: "publishers" that charge large fees for services you could buy separately for less, and marketing packages that deliver nothing. The same rule applies. Money should flow to the author from a publisher, and if you're self-publishing you should know exactly what every dollar you spend buys.

How to decide

Some questions to answer honestly:

What do you want from this book? Bookshop presence and a publisher's backing, or control and speed?
How many books do you plan to write? Self-publishing rewards a steady output; one standalone is harder to make pay.
Can you fund editing and a cover if you go it alone?
Do you want to run a small business? Self-publishing means pricing, ads, metadata and email lists.
How do you handle waiting? Querying can take a long time before anything happens.

You don't have to choose once and forever. Many authors query one book and self-publish another. If you think you might query a book, plan before you publish it, because agents are generally looking for books that haven't been published yet.

Sources

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