*But only if you are ready to, and don’t feel pressured to be a super-producer if that’s not your thing.

Full disclosure: I started this before Dorothy wrote her post two weeks ago. I don’t know if it is great minds, or the full moon.

Back in the less-than-totally-Dark-Ages of electronic publishing, that being about ten years ago or so, it was observed that writers who could turn out a relatively high volume of decent to good stories did really well. Really, really, six-digits-before-the-decimal well. Chris Nuttall was one example in sci-fi and fantasy, there were several in romance that did likewise. This produced a lot of grumbling, kicking, screaming, and whining from the Traditional Publishers once readers turned and said, “Hey, why can’t you do that?” One of my favorite lines came from a major publisher who emphasized the importance of quality over quantity, and how the role of a publishing house and editors was to protect readers from “the tsunami of swill” that threatened to overwhelm the book industry.

At which point a lot of people pointed to the books written by the cast of the TV series Jersey Shore, and snickered loudly. Then went merrily back to tearing down the wall around the well-kept gate and publishing anyway. A couple of people had tee-shirts made saying, “Surfing the Tsunami of Swill.”

The problem for traditionally published authors was two-fold. First, there were only so many release slots available in a year for each publishing house. And books were somewhat seasonal, so space had to be reserved for summer vacation books, holiday Christmas and winter-themed books, the romance push around Valentine’s and so on. So even a relatively fast writer wasn’t allowed to release more than a book or perhaps two a year, if that many. There just wasn’t room space on the schedule. Each book had to be edited, sent back to the author, checked and set, galley proofs sent to the author, then copies printed and shipped out.

Second, bookstores couldn’t handle too many books taking up space. Physical room was needed to store and display the product.

Because of the slow pace of publishing, relatively speaking, authors who wrote too fast didn’t have as much of an advantage as they did after indie publishing became big. Literature took time, good fiction took time. Ignore the pulps and the folks who made a living from short stories in adventure magazines and the like. They weren’t “real” authors*.

Speed ahead to 2009-2010 and after. Amazon made e-books relatively easy, as did Smashwords and then Barnes and Noble. Formatting was a pain at first, but there was no limit on what you published and how often you released books. The distributors didn’t care – pixels and bytes of data don’t take up warehouse space. Authors looked at the 70% royalty payments, the fast payments (90 days instead of 18 months!) and other things, and said, “Wheeeee!”

Those who could produce good quality stories relatively quickly made good money. Readers who had gotten burned by waiting a year or two or three for the next book reveled in two books a year, or three, or four. They threw money at the author and spread the word that this person delivered. Now, the publisher who sniffed about the dreck washing through the e-book world wasn’t entirely wrong. But that’s true of anything, and readers quickly learned to filter out books. Amazon made it easier with their “look inside” and “first bit free” options. Covers improved, the insides of books looked more like print versions, and readers got used to more than one book every 24 months.

However, there were and are genres where readers don’t have a problem with a longer span between books. Literary fiction is a major one. Readers are there for the language and ideas as much as the story, and expect a slower output. Faster is suspect, still. Epic fantasy is another, in part because of book length. Brandon Sanderson is amazing, but he’s not Superman. Long books take longer to write, and to proof and edit.

The point of all this is that if you can produce quality works several times a year, or twice a year, you will make more sales in the short term than if you write more slowly. However, the backlist and long-tail mean that slower even out over time. Write at your pace. I tend to write quickly if everything goes well and Life is within reason. Those don’t always happen at the same time. If you are not a full-time writer, don’t kill your self or sacrifice quality for quantity. It’s not worth it. Write and release at your pace. Dorothy’s post and the comments on it have a lot of ideas, themes and variations, and experiences. You are you. Don’t try to be a Chris Nuttall if you work full time and have a spouse and kids at home.

Do your thing, at your pace, the best you can.

Image Credit: Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

*This isn’t new. Back in the 1920s-30s, the English prof who wrote histories as Stanley Vestal insisted that his students write and sell an article or story to pass his class. His colleagues and the university administrators looked at this with great displeasure.