A book a year is slacking

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Rubay H.

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A new article by the NY times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/b...-cramp-a-book-a-year-is-slacking.html?_r=1&hp

The push for more material comes as publishers and booksellers are desperately looking for ways to hold onto readers being lured by other forms of entertainment, much of it available nonstop and almost instantaneously. Television shows are rushed online only hours after they are originally broadcast, and some movies are offered on demand at home before they have left theaters. In this environment, publishers say, producing one a book a year, and nothing else, is just not enough.

Okay, a bit of mixed feelings here. On one hand, if you consider yourself a professional writer and your goal is to make a good living in the business - then yes, writing only one book a year is slacking. IMO.

Then there are the G.R.R.M's out there that I wouldn't mind seeing a little more of in between the release of their novels. A short story would be, frankly AMAZING and many of his fans would gobble those up like hungry, hungry hippos!

On the other hand, I don't want my favorite authors pushed to produce crappy books.
Too many of those can turn me off of a favorite author. :/
Opinions?
 

Kitty27

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I think it depends on the author's writing style.

Some absolutely need time to write a great book and when they try to keep up with this kind of pace,their work suffers.

Badly.

This affects their fanbase and profit as fans will only endure so many crappy books.

Then there are authors who can crank a book out every three months with no difficulty and write just as good.

I don't think a writer should be forced to set a pace. I am also thinking that if this isn't your natural writing style, it can cause a burnout and writer's block from hell as you aren't writing for fun anymore but to meet a deadline. A tired author,a pissed fanbase and a publisher pushing for more material produces a vicious cycle.
 

WildScribe

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TheThinker42, who is around here somewhere, writes about a book a month. They're GOOD, too. Some of the best I've read in the genre.

For others, that pace is unthinkable.

It totally depends on the author whether this is feasible.
 

Mr Flibble

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Well at teh rate one is quoted as writing - 2k a day (and I think 9am to Colbert would be, er, about 12 hours?), so that's 166 words an hour

Okay, now some writers carefully carve each sentence. Fine. But 7 days a week, that's 14k a week. Which means a full length first draft in about 2 months....Say same again for edits? So, yeah, that would mean you're slacking for 8 months a year. :D

I dunnow, something's not adding up here. Anyway, sure, yes some writer faster than others. Piling on pressure helps some, and not others but....are the publishers forcing this on writers? Or suggesting it? Or are authors just responding to increased demand (which, erm should be good, really) off their own bat?

Are things changing? Yes. Is writing 2k a day "brutal" as the article (not the author) suggests? Lol. No.
 

waylander

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If they were paying enough to be a full-time writer then possibly, but are they?
 

SomethingOrOther

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A mid-length novel (~90-120k words) has about the same scale as one season of a typical dramatic TV series (e.g., Breaking Bad), and they sell for comparable prices, so, if we're talking purely in terms of quantity, one of those a year should be able to compete easily.

Still, if my favorite novelist (David Mitchell) became even more of a robot and could churn out a book a year, with no decline in quality, I'd be staining my pants.
 
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Alitriona

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If I was doing what James Patterson is doing, I could put out 9 books a year too. Sadly I don't have anyone to do the bulk of the writing for me.

I guess that makes me a slacker since my goal is to one day earn a living from writing. I would find the pressure of 2k a day brutal, although I'm not sitting at my laptop 12 hours a day, probably about half that.

I think people write at whatever pace they write at. Forcing them to write faster by insinuating they are sitting around filing their nails is not going to help.
 

leahzero

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Yeah, this is total bullshit. Even the greats like John Updike, who's referenced in the article, produced tons of derivative work that wasn't always up to snuff.

Art takes time. It takes time spent living, experiencing, thinking, feeling, and then committing the product of these processes to paper/canvas/whatever.

James Patterson isn't even a person, he's a factory. He has a team of ghostwriters working under his name.

This article is both depressing and stupid.
 

SomethingOrOther

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I agree completely with leah.

James Patterson isn't even a person, he's a factory.

This makes me imagine James Patterson at a book signing. Someone says his books suck, he growls and walks towards them hands extended like a zombie, someone gets scared and throws his book at him, he topples over and actual steam pours from his ears, a panel on his chest squeals open, and seven bearded elves dressed in writers' garb hop out and skitter around in random directions.
 

ios

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I read about this on the Writer's Cafe on Kindleboards, too. Anyway, I find this news a little disturbing on another front. It sounds like shorter works are demanded more too, and that the publisher itself is putting them out? If so, what does this mean for short story markets and the writer who used to submit shorts and novelettes/novellas to these markets? Worse, the article makes it seem like the author is *not* getting much money for these shorts, that it is more for promotion or exposure.

Jodi

ETA: My lost "not," doh.
 

Jamesaritchie

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A new article by the NY times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/b...-cramp-a-book-a-year-is-slacking.html?_r=1&hp



Okay, a bit of mixed feelings here. On one hand, if you consider yourself a professional writer and your goal is to make a good living in the business - then yes, writing only one book a year is slacking. IMO.

Then there are the G.R.R.M's out there that I wouldn't mind seeing a little more of in between the release of their novels. A short story would be, frankly AMAZING and many of his fans would gobble those up like hungry, hungry hippos!

On the other hand, I don't want my favorite authors pushed to produce crappy books.
Too many of those can turn me off of a favorite author. :/
Opinions?

First, I think that article is complete nonsense. One book per year has always been the minimum publishers wanted, never the maximum, and more than one book per year does not, and never has, over saturate the market. If that were true, nine tenths of teh writers I've read over teh decades wouldn't have been write up to four books per year.

I've been reading exactly the same thing that article says over and over and over for more than thirty years, and found the same thing written long, long before I even started reading.

There's ALWAYS some new this or new that pulling readers away from books. Sales numbers sale it isn't actually happening, and never has.

Having said that, for most pro writers, a book a year is pretty slow. And publishers have ALWAYS wanted as many books as they could get from a top selling writer.

Whether it's Louis L'Amour, Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Lawrence Block, Robert B. Parker, Tom Clancy, publishers would love to have as many books as the reading public will buy.

And many pro writers already write more than most readers realize because many use pseudonyms, or venture off into writing everything from short stories to scripts, to articles, to how-to books, to you name it.

One book a year is pretty slow for most who write for a living. I write five hours per day, five days per week. This makes me really, really lazy compared to many, but that's still a minimum of 12,500 final draft words in five days.

Dean Koontz writes close to seventy hours per week. It's just what he loves doing, and not because of publisher pressure.
 

Richard White

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Unless writing full-time pays a whole lot more than I think it does, I don't see giving up my job as a technical writer anytime soon. So, I think knocking out one novel a year and maybe two short stories would be about the limit for me (if I want time to see my family, that is.)
 

Calla Lily

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I work a FT job, have a DH and 2 teenage boys, and do most of the laundry and cooking.

Last calendar year I wrote 2 books, one 65K and one 60K, while also doing rewrites and edits for a contracted book. That pace made me a very stressed, cranky Lily. If I were to land a contract that paid enough to pay the bills + health insurance then I would be able to write 2 books a year without endangering my marriage and blood pressure.

/annoyed comment at utterly out-of-touch-with-reality article
 
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jjdebenedictis

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You can't build a career off crappy books.

There are some writers who can blurt out novels that are not crap at a shocking pace, but that's a rare trait.

It's worthwhile pushing yourself just to see whether you're capable of more than you thought you were, but never compromise on quality. Write the best book you can, every single time
 

kaitie

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Yes. Is writing 2k a day "brutal" as the article (not the author) suggests? Lol. No.

For me brutal would be a fair word. On occasion I can manage it, but 1k a day is more realistic (and I rarely actually pull that off for long stretches).

I have so much other stuff going on, especially around test times, that finding even half an hour to write some days is pushing it. And I'm slow. Some days I'm slower than others, depending on the scene, but just in general. Sometimes I can work for two or three hours and have barely 500 words worthy of showing anyone.

Even if I was writing full-time, I think 2k a day would be a lot for me. That's up there with my best days, and a lot of that has nothing to do with the ability to write words so much as how far ahead my mind can plan. I write things in my head before they go on paper, and I can only really keep so much in my mind before I need a break to do something else and reboot. The exceptions are the scenes I've had planned out for months and have gone over in my mind so often I can easily spit them all out in one go if I have the time for it.

I've seen some of my favorite writers decline in quality the more books they start shelling out. I don't want to do that, and more than that I'm not willing to drive myself insane with stress to get a contract. One book a year is good for me. Maybe one day after several more years of experience I can do more, but right now there is no way I could do that and still put out a good product. My goal is to be able to write a book in eight months and then have a couple of months to edit it.
 

mscelina

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And see, for me my top productive speed is 2k an hour. For FIRST drafts. But I'm an obsessive reviser, and that's where the time suck comes into play for me. Right now I'm running the editorial side of a publisher, actively editing, donating time to a couple of groups I always give time to, and still hitting at least 2k a day in my WIP.

HOWEVER--

My kids (and their kids) are all living somewhere other than my house (for the moment), my husband works twelve hour shifts from noon to noon, and I have a lot of quiet time with which to operate.

All writers function at different levels and with different speeds and abilities. I certainly don't expect an author writing the next great American novel to crank out a perfect first draft at the same speed that I write my little genre...epics. IF I did nothing BUT write, I'd be able to work at or near the same speed that LA Witt or another AWer Gini Koch do. I don't manage to do that, but still can complete a respectable 3 or so a year.
 

sunandshadow

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2k a day is slightly higher than the required pace to "win" nanowrimo, which is regularly reported to cause burnout in participants, and even winners regularly need recovery time afterwards. So in my opinion that pace is objectively brutal for a large percentage of writers, though not all.
 

Filigree

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I wrote 80K of a 99K book in two months last year, with the final 20K and revisions taking me another two months. It sold within three months of querying. I'll try to bang out the sequel by December of this year, but it all depends on how much time my day job and financial needs demand. If art projects come along that pay more than writing, you can bet I'll focus on the art.

I could be comfortable with producing 2 - 3 books a year, but probably not more than that. I go deep into revisions, much more than my first draft.

As for 2K a day being brutal? Hah! In my best moments, I can do 5 - 7K a day with no problem, in eight to nine-hour stretches.
 

seun

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I recently finished the first draft of my latest book. It came in quite short - 65,000 words. Took me about seven weeks. I'll leave it alone until mid-June, then start my edits. It'll take a lot of work to get it up to submission standard. I suspect I'll have it ready by late August. So say mid-March to late August for one book. That's my pace while writing with a full-time job.

Without the job, I could easily cut that time in half. But then without the job, I'd be eating cat food so it's not really an option.
 

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But 2K a day is WAY more than is required for that author to put out a second book a year. She says she writes 2K a day, 7 days a week... that's over 700K words a year. Which sounds more like 7 novels, or 14 if she's writing YA or category romance!

I think words a year is a much better measure, and I think publishable words a year is even better than that. Two novels a year, the goal of the author in the story, would be 200K publishable words a year (she writes thrillers, apparently, so I estimated 100K each). I'm going to be generous and give her weekends off, and two weeks vacation, and she would still only need to be writing 800 words a day. Now obviously there is other work involved in getting the words ready for publication, but come on. As a full time job? No, no sympathy from me.

(For others, for whom writing is NOT a full time job, hell yeah, it's hard to find the time and energy. But two books a year when it's her full time job? Please.)
 
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