Pitch University, an advice site centered around how to pitch your book, has an interesting look at whether or not a writer should e-publish his book. Literary agent Christine Wittholn takes a look at the opportunities fostered by the e-publishing explosion and warns that they may not be right for everybody.
E-publishing, she is quick to warn, creates a huge slushpile, with quality writers sometimes few and far between. If a writer is going to self-publish, he needs to know how to make his work stand out from the rest, and also has to know how to balance promotional and other business-related efforts with writing time.
She also warns that, enticing as the Cinderella stories of successful self-publishing writers are, there is a lot of time and effort behind every one of them. There’s no short-cut to success, and nobody’s going to get rich from just tossing a book on the Internet.
And she warns that writers should be careful about the e-publisher they choose—they should do their homework first and never enter into a contract without an agent or lawyer reviewing it first.
This is a very useful column, with a lot of good advice. New writers should be sure and take it to heart!