Over at mediabistro.com’s main website, Jonathan Bender says that you don’t always have to take the first offer for a book contract that comes along, especially if “you might look back at that choice with regret, realizing that was when you gave up the opportunity to write the book you really wanted in the first place.” Bender rounds up advice from authors and agents to help you establish a realistic financial bottom line and stick to it, although one can think of any number of writers who might snigger at his suggestion that “signing with a traditional publisher offers the benefits of production and promotion.” Yes, “self-publishing is time-intensive,” but most authors would agree that so is marketing a book that’s been acquired and put out by a “real” publishing house.
(Then again, as the saying goes: What, and leave show business?)
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