Wow! What a great problem to have! If people are already wanting your book and your agent can’t sell it to a traditional publisher than why not publish it yourself? If you sell enough copies a publisher will quickly be interested and if you don’t, at least you’ve satisfied your readers and made a little bit of money.

If you’re intent on traditional publishing I would ask your agent for more feedback. Who has your agent sent the book to? Is your agent choosing the right kinds of publishers for your book? How successful has your agent been in publishing similar books? Perhaps your agent isn’t familiar with the market for your book. If that’s not the case, I’d ask your agent to tell you what publishers say when they’re rejecting it. Are they saying there isn’t a big enough audience? If so, wow them with all your speaking and media appearances and show how many requests you’ve had for the book. If they’re saying the writing isn’t strong enough, hire an outside editor to give you feedback.

If you and your agent believe in the book and you’ve already established a market for it then you need to discover why publishers aren’t interested and then fix that problem. If you can’t, the bypass the publisher and do it yourself!

Thanks for your comment!

- Jennifer