I just read an interesting article in the New York Times entitled: Writer's Cramp: In the E-Reader Era, A Book A Year Is Slacking. It says that authors are now pulling the literary equivalent of a double shift, putting out short stories or novellas or even an extra full-length book every year. Best-selling thriller author Lisa Scottoline says that one book a year used to "saturate the market." She notes that in the e-reader era, "the culture is a great big hungry maw, and you have to feed it." Ms. Scottoline now turns out 2,000 words a day by starting at 9 am and writing until Colbert.
Lee Child has increased production too. The author of the "Jack Reacher" novels now puts out digital only short stories to supplement his one book a year. For the love of all ducks in the universe - even JOHN GRISHAM has ramped up production, now turning out a YA "Theodore Boone" novel once a year and one of his (usually) amazing legal thrillers once a year.
The once a year system was created by publishers who reasoned that the public would never be "overwhelmed by content" at that rate. However, in the e-age "today's readers seem incapable of being overwhelmed."
At least one mega-author makes two books a year seem like really slacking. Best-selling author James Patterson is his own cottage industry, turning out 12 books last year. He says he'll do 13 this year. How? Did he clone himself? No - it turns out he has "co-writers" on some of them.
What does all of this mean to writers like me who are still trying to turn writing into a full time career? I'm hampered by -- *gasp* -- a day job. I'm a lawyer, but I'm a "scrivener." Guess what that means I do all day? Yep, you got it -- I write. I'm an associate in an office with a talented trial lawyer and we've found that his gift of gab and my gift of BS make for an excellent legal team. It's not the writing I want to do. That I get to do at night and on weekends -- until I manage to produce enough content to sell enough books each month to support my family.
I adore the growing appetite for books and think that it's proof positive that technology hasn't killed the book - it's speeding the growth of writing by leaps and bounds. I'd love nothing better than to make a living feeding the "big hungry maw." But, there's only one way I'm gonna be able to do it - bionic fingers.
Do they sell those on E-Bay? How about Craigslist? Well, all I know is, if they're not out there now, once Walmart and Amazon figure out there's a market - -they'll be clawing each other to be king. You know, if I could get a percent or two of the new bionic fingers market, I might get my chance to write full time