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This. Most people don't realize that the vast majority of authors -- even your J.K. Rowlings, Stephen Kings, and John Grishams -- make their money over a big v

This. Most people don't realize that the vast majority of authors -- even your J.K. Rowlings, Stephen Kings, and John Grishams -- make their money over a big volume of works, rather than on any individual work. Amanda Hocking, with her much-storied, self-published millions, is no different. She didn't get rich off a single book; she got rich because she cranked out 20 bajillion books at once. If anything, the new economics of publishing will push things further in this direction. The pressures of this market will favor prolific authors over one-hit-wonders. It's debatable whether that's a good thing or a bad thing for authors and, ultimately, readers. You could certainly describe it as the fast foodization of the book world. But the new dynamics would simply represent an acceleration of an existing model. After all, the John Grishams of the world were already massively richer than the modern-day James Joyces of the world before Amazon showed up. That's not a new or particularly startling phenomenon.

cfn 15y ago
A prolific writer is in a better position to make a killing but bad user reviews may eventually put an end to it. A big difference from the past is that self-pubbed authors can receive up to 70% of the sales whereas they would get 10% or less with legacy publishing. This greatly reduces the threshold of success (if measured as being able to live off writing).
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  A fair point, but then, middling to bad user reviews don't seem to have slowed down mass-market juggernauts like Dan Brown and James Patterson. In theory, user reviews help keep a check on absolute fast foodization. But in praxis, they haven't really mattered all that much. Though I suspect they will matter a lot more a few years from now, when we'll be seeing more and more authors get their starts in self-publishing. (And right now, they seem to matter more at the extremes than in the middle: people pay attention to one-star reviews and five-star reviews, but the muddy middle doesn't seem to register as easily). As for the treshold of success: agreed on most counts. The costs of entry and the barriers to making a successful living have been lowered. But the tricky part is that authors will increasingly bear the burdens for their own publicity, marketing, etc. Successful authors of the future will probably have a lot in common with successful entrepreneurs in the app market.
  - pmichaud 15y ago
    In my experience, if the book isn't a blockbuster with a huge marketing budget, ratings make or break it. If someone searches for a book on amazon, and finds a "maybe," they look at reviews. If the reviews are consistently good, they buy. If there are bad ratings, they don't. I've had books go from selling consistently to selling almost nbothing just from one or two negative reviews.
    - sethg 15y ago
      I think this is where small presses (or specialized imprints/brands from larger publishers) can make a big difference, even in the post-paper-book world, for authors that appeal to a niche market. Last week I was browsing the SF shelves at the local about-to-close Borders, and I ended up buying a book I had never heard of by an author I had never heard of without even reading the first chapter. One reason I took that risk, of course, was that it only cost my five bucks. But the reason I picked that book out of all the titles on the shelf, most of which were even cheaper, was that it was put out by Haikasoru (a small press specializing in translations of Japanese SF), and I really liked the last Haikasoru book I bought, and I read the editor’s LJ, and I like his taste.
      - cfn 15y ago
        Quite true. And going beyond ratings and prior knowledge, are the recommendation engines that may also create some networking effects. Also, an anti-thesis for the submitted article can be found in many articles by Joe Konrath: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

cfn 15y ago

A prolific writer is in a better position to make a killing but bad user reviews may eventually put an end to it. A big difference from the past is that self-pubbed authors can receive up to 70% of the sales whereas they would get 10% or less with legacy publishing. This greatly reduces the threshold of success (if measured as being able to live off writing).

jonnathanson 15y ago
A fair point, but then, middling to bad user reviews don't seem to have slowed down mass-market juggernauts like Dan Brown and James Patterson. In theory, user reviews help keep a check on absolute fast foodization. But in praxis, they haven't really mattered all that much. Though I suspect they will matter a lot more a few years from now, when we'll be seeing more and more authors get their starts in self-publishing. (And right now, they seem to matter more at the extremes than in the middle: people pay attention to one-star reviews and five-star reviews, but the muddy middle doesn't seem to register as easily). As for the treshold of success: agreed on most counts. The costs of entry and the barriers to making a successful living have been lowered. But the tricky part is that authors will increasingly bear the burdens for their own publicity, marketing, etc. Successful authors of the future will probably have a lot in common with successful entrepreneurs in the app market.
- pmichaud 15y ago
  In my experience, if the book isn't a blockbuster with a huge marketing budget, ratings make or break it. If someone searches for a book on amazon, and finds a "maybe," they look at reviews. If the reviews are consistently good, they buy. If there are bad ratings, they don't. I've had books go from selling consistently to selling almost nbothing just from one or two negative reviews.
  - sethg 15y ago
    I think this is where small presses (or specialized imprints/brands from larger publishers) can make a big difference, even in the post-paper-book world, for authors that appeal to a niche market. Last week I was browsing the SF shelves at the local about-to-close Borders, and I ended up buying a book I had never heard of by an author I had never heard of without even reading the first chapter. One reason I took that risk, of course, was that it only cost my five bucks. But the reason I picked that book out of all the titles on the shelf, most of which were even cheaper, was that it was put out by Haikasoru (a small press specializing in translations of Japanese SF), and I really liked the last Haikasoru book I bought, and I read the editor’s LJ, and I like his taste.
    - cfn 15y ago
      Quite true. And going beyond ratings and prior knowledge, are the recommendation engines that may also create some networking effects. Also, an anti-thesis for the submitted article can be found in many articles by Joe Konrath: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/