I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, and if I win, I can get my book published by CreateSpace for free. It would be self-published, not by a real publishing company. Does anyone know if self-publishing this book would hurt my chances of getting an agent and getting my book published?

All Answers To Questions

Self publishing is for the deluded, egotistical, and inconsequential writer. In short, no, no, and no.

Yes, it will hurt your chances. Publishers will generally not buy a book that is already in print. There have been cases where a self-published book was bought later by a real book company, but those cases are very rare and the book usually already had a decent following befor the publishers picked it up. I would never recommend self-publishing to anyone unless you're just desperate to see your work in print. Self-publishing is not considered a legitimate form of publishing at all and is usually done only for the authors vanity (hence the term "vanity publishing")

Not if you mean writing another book after the one you self-published. Of course a publisher is not going to publish the book you already published...right? But if you write another book, and it is a good one, any publisher that is not crazy would be glad to publish it if it looks like a seller!

Here is an excerpt from Noah Lukeman's free e-book, Ask a Literary Agent. He answers this exact question from the perspective of a literary agent (because he is one): "Understandably, authors worry that self-publishing their book with a print on demand (POD) service could end up hurting them in the long run. They worry that an assigned ISBN could track their book’s sales, and that if sales are weak, a future publisher will reject future books based on their track record. But there is nothing to fear. Publishers are sophisticated enough to differentiate whether an author’s prior books sold poorly as a result of being published in a POD format or as a result of being published by a major publisher. If an author’s books were published by a major publisher and sold poorly, then yes, this would be a major problem for a future acquiring editor. But if the poor sales were the result of a POD edition, then all is forgiven, and the author is treated as if he had never been published at all. And if the sales were strong, the POD edition can become an asset. This has been my experience as a literary agent. I also discussed this question with an editor at a major publishing house, and he concurred."