The Pressure to Publish

[NekoParks]

The Pressure to Publish--Writers' Cramp

Often I save articles regarding writing on my computer. Recently, I rediscovered the following article from the New York Times concerning the effects of epublishing upon writers. I would be interested in any published authors' reactions to this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/in-e-reader-age-of-writers-cramp-a-book-a-year-is-slacking.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Often I save articles regarding writing on my computer. Recently, I rediscovered the following article from the New York Times concerning the effects of epublishing upon writers. I would be interested in any published authors' reactions to this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/in-e-reader-age-of-writers-cramp-a-book-a-year-is-slacking.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Writing horror and selling it to e-publishers is okay but most come and go quickly, its a horrible market, and the money aint great.

 

[lovecraft68]

I get this completely. Whenever I finished an e-book in the first year I started on Smashwords I would take a break. I would feel a sense of accomplishment and give the batteries some time to charge.

Now the second "The End" is typped its all about "Next" Now if I don;t start something within a day or so of wrapping something up I get ticked off at myself.

Its like anything else you decide to try to do as either o full or part time living, its all about "bigger, better, faster, more.

 

[emap]

The article itself is actually wrong on a very key thing. It says authors only wrote one story a year. This is completely false, authors only had one book a year published and that is even not entirely correct.

Publishers receive a manuscript and then edit the work, perhaps work with the author to improve the story. they also determine things like what to say on the inside flap, what picture to use on the cover. All the fun and not terribly important things that publishers did. Well some of it is important but not really since most books are bought by the name, category, and title above all else.

Anyway an author is published one book a year so the publisher can do the above. This is not always correct since if the author has say a mystery and a horror novel they can be published in the same year. Never the same day but same month on occassion. What is different now is simply the E-market is huge and people want to get more books.

Since you can have a library on your phone now it doesn't matter where you are, you got books to read. People are reading novels on the way to work, in between their work, at the meetings. Hey don't laugh it happens since a phone carries a library it's not obvious.

 

[MichaelWest]

As I read it, the publishers are pushing to keep known names top of mind by pushing more product. Authors agree to this and are attempting to put out more material. Since I am not published beyond such places as this my opinion may be for naught, yet I find it a dead end path.

Books are special. New stories from a favorite author should be anticipated and if they come out like sausages from the factory what is lost by that author and the fans? Some amazing authors take a very long time to craft their works and fans are hungry but patient because the stories are worth it.

But I did think releasing a short story before a new novel was a good idea. And I think readers will expect more interaction too. An established auithor that shares work in progress keeps himself or herself top of mind with fans without just puking more words on more pages faster to satisfy the flood of entertainment available in the stream.

 

[NekoParks]

The article itself is actually wrong on a very key thing. It says authors only wrote one story a year. This is completely false, authors only had one book a year published and that is even not entirely correct.

Publishers receive a manuscript and then edit the work, perhaps work with the author to improve the story. they also determine things like what to say on the inside flap, what picture to use on the cover. All the fun and not terribly important things that publishers did. Well some of it is important but not really since most books are bought by the name, category, and title above all else.

Anyway an author is published one book a year so the publisher can do the above. This is not always correct since if the author has say a mystery and a horror novel they can be published in the same year. Never the same day but same month on occassion. What is different now is simply the E-market is huge and people want to get more books.

Since you can have a library on your phone now it doesn't matter where you are, you got books to read. People are reading novels on the way to work, in between their work, at the meetings. Hey don't laugh it happens since a phone carries a library it's not obvious.

Thank you so much for your response. I was wondering about the accuracy of this article. However, I like the way that epublishing has made buying a book almost an impulse purchase. I have over 700 books on my Kindle, so I don't doubt that people are storing books on their phones and so on.

 

[NekoParks]

Writing horror and selling it to e-publishers is okay but most come and go quickly, its a horrible market, and the money aint great.

I get this completely. Whenever I finished an e-book in the first year I started on Smashwords I would take a break. I would feel a sense of accomplishment and give the batteries some time to charge.

Now the second "The End" is typped its all about "Next" Now if I don;t start something within a day or so of wrapping something up I get ticked off at myself.

Its like anything else you decide to try to do as either o full or part time living, its all about "bigger, better, faster, more.

As I read it, the publishers are pushing to keep known names top of mind by pushing more product. Authors agree to this and are attempting to put out more material. Since I am not published beyond such places as this my opinion may be for naught, yet I find it a dead end path.

Books are special. New stories from a favorite author should be anticipated and if they come out like sausages from the factory what is lost by that author and the fans? Some amazing authors take a very long time to craft their works and fans are hungry but patient because the stories are worth it.

But I did think releasing a short story before a new novel was a good idea. And I think readers will expect more interaction too. An established auithor that shares work in progress keeps himself or herself top of mind with fans without just puking more words on more pages faster to satisfy the flood of entertainment available in the stream.

I really appreciate all of the people who have taken the time to read and respond. Thank you.

 

[sr71plt]

I think the NYT article is basically right, but not necessarily for the reasons it emphasizes. It's true that mainstream publishers haven't wanted more than one book in a genre by a major mainstream author each year. That's mainly because they don't want their major promotional campaigns tripping over each other and because their studies showed that they could sell significantly more major author books in total by the year spacing rather than more often. Authors like Nora Roberts churn out far more each year than one, because she writes fast (and writes essentially the same book each time). She had to go to other pen names (JD Robb not being her only one) to get her publishers to agree to more launches in a year (authors like her are controlled by publisher contracts--they can't just choose to publish more, even by themselves).

This isn't the same rhythm with e-books, though. E-books advertise main stream authors right alongside self-published authors (something traditional book stores never did), so the competition is different with e-books. You need to have one go up every three or four months to keep up with the competition for reader attention And if you do, you are doubly rewarded, because your backlist doesn't die like print books traditionally have done. If you can get a reader/buyer to click on a "new" book frequently in an e-book store, they'll buy off your backlist too.

The quotes from Lee Child in the article are right on in what he's saying now. I've heard him say it directly.

The article is off on John Gresham. He's tired of writing the lawyer thrillers and wants legitimacy in some other fields. He has forced is publishers to let him publish in the other fields in the same year. In his case neither his publishers nor the e-book revolution are pressing him to do this.

A posting up the line doesn't represent a prolific mainstream author's annual writing schedule well. In a given year, a successful mainstream author is promoting this year's book, working on the production of next year's book, and working on researching and writing the book for the year after next. This is quite enough work for most mainstream authors to be trying to hack at one time. So the "one" well-promoted book a year has been a natural rhythm in the print world.

 

[TxRad]

Pilot, I agree with what you've said, except...

I have two trilogies out and my publisher wanted them on a 5 to 6 month basis as not to make the reader wait too long between books. It seems to have worked out pretty good.

 

[steve44uk]

As someone who works in the book trade, this article represents what I hear from authors a lot. Big frontlist authors can still churn out their book a year (or 13 if your Mr Patterson's ghost writer). The authors who are feeling the pressure most, though, are those midlist journeymen authors who, in addition to producing "content" at an ever-increasing pace, are now also expected to market their books online via Facebook, Twitter, blogging and guest-blogging. Not only is this not often something that's in their skillset, it also eats in (quite dramatically, some tell me) to their writing time. They're effectively subsidising their publisher to divert what little marketing spend might have come their way to the big blockbuster authors.

The other interesting point arising from the article is that of curation. Most authors agree that the editorial process is hugely beneficial to their finished work. Publishing, at it's best, is a collaborative process, from initial commissioning through to marketing and sales. However, the "hungry maw" that is the current market makes it increasingly easy (and, indeed, the only way for many authors) to entirely bypass this process, doing the whole thing themselves. I know several people from this site who do just that, and their work is good. Could it be better with the help of professionals who could edit, advise, design, market and well those books using a career's worth of experience? Almost certainly yes. But the ebook market is rendering that traditional publishing model obsolete, or at best marginalising it. And, IMNSHO, that will make for more stuff to read (A Good Thing), but much of it will not be as good as it could have been (A Not-So-Good Thing).

Publishing houses will always exist. But they're losing control of the lion-share of the market that they're used to. Literary authors, the "quality" (please don't shout at me, I use the term in quotation marks for a reason) end of the market, which already operates on short print runs, may well continue as they are. Specialist publishing houses, who produce high-ticket limited editions for niche markets, have been thriving for years now and will continue to prosper. But the days of mass-market publishing houses and (god help me) bookstores on every high street, are numbered. The numbers just don't stack up, even in the medium term. And if B&N in the US or Waterstone's in the UK go down, expect to see many publishers fold. Loss of print market share on that scale (not to mention the bad debt that will cripple many publishers' cash-flow) could well spell the demise for many houses.

Yours sincerely
Cassandra

 

[lovecraft68]

This isn't the same rhythm with e-books, though. E-books advertise main stream authors right alongside self-published authors (something traditional book stores never did), so the competition is different with e-books. You need to have one go up every three or four months to keep up with the competition for reader attention And if you do, you are doubly rewarded, because your backlist doesn't die like print books traditionally have done. If you can get a reader/buyer to click on a "new" book frequently in an e-book store, they'll buy off your backlist too.

Exactly, whenever I come out with something new I'll see a couple of sales on a book that previously wasn't moving much,'

A feature I like about smashwords is when you get an e-mail saying you sold a book it will list each title the person bought when its a multiple sale.

Whenever I get something new up I will generally see a few multi sales that have older titles up there and my feeling is its someone who recently purchased a new one and liked it enough to check out some older stuff.

E-book pricing also factors in here. my stuff is mostly $2.99 with a few for $3.99 so a person can grab 3 book for the price of a traditionally published book.

 

[sr71plt]

Pilot, I agree with what you've said, except...

I have two trilogies out and my publisher wanted them on a 5 to 6 month basis as not to make the reader wait too long between books. It seems to have worked out pretty good.

The publisher saw them as one unit then. But even on these the publishers usually have a longer production time line just for their needs alone.

 

[TxRad]

The publisher saw them as one unit then. But even on these the publishers usually have a longer production time line just for their needs alone.

Correct. They wanted them out in three month intervals but couldn't manage it.