Authors Pressured to Write a Book a Year
I read an article about big, blockbuster authors being forced to write a book a year, either by contract or by promises of a larger advance.
I can understand when it comes to marketing books that it’s better to get the product’s (in this case. the author’s) face out there as much as possible. However, when it comes to any art, it seems weird to me to put a deadline on it.
I mean, if you write a book, then let it sit, it rises like yeast. New ideas form, problems work out. Once the book has been placed in a dark, cool place and been allowed to rise, it must then be put in the oven and baked. The baking process takes different lengths of time for different bakers.
Okay, maybe I took it a little far with the baking metaphor… but you get what I mean.
What do you think, is it better to pressure an author into getting a book out each year, getting them more exposure, but by the same means allowing fewer new authors into the “cool club”? or, should authors be allowed to write at their own pace, some fast and others slow, and the in-between time is spent on acquiring new faces? I can see both sides of the spectrum – the publishers want to concentrate on the talent they have and not spend the time, money and resources on new talent that may not do well, while there are lots of writers out there who do not produce a book a year, but still want their chance. What do you, fine readers, believe should be done?
They should let the author write at that individual author’s pace. To do otherwise is to ask for trouble.
Would they rather have the author grid out a book a year that is of poor quality and consequently loses readers or would they prefer to keep the quality up and gain more readers but take longer to get the book written?
My vote goes for the latter. To me it makes both artistic and commercial sense.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:22 amI absolutely agree. Why in the world would you want to publish something that doesn’t work for the author?
June 26th, 2008 at 10:54 pm