Speed in Writing: Can You Compete with the Hocking Principle?
Self-published Amanda Hocking is now a millionairess due to sales of her 99-cent Kindle novels. The ripple effect of this to the publishing world won't be seen in its entirety for some time. The best analysis I've read is a post on Nathan Bransford's blog.
In a post on Amanda Hocking 's Blog, she describes writing a book in as little as a week. Mathew Ingram in a post for Gigom.com, states that Amanda Hocking released nine e-books written in less than a year. One writer, in a forum discussion at http://christianwriters.com, coined a term for the speed with which Amanda Hocking writes her books: The Hocking Principle. Many writers feel the need to step up the pace of production in order to compete.
Author Kait Nolan asks if e-books will take on the same function as pulp fiction in E-books, the New Pulp Fiction? Here's a quote: From my own observations of Amazon rankings among my indie compatriots, there is a certain kind of…multiplicative effect of having multiple titles out. But it isn't JUST an issue of having multiple titles–it's RELEASING THEM CLOSE TOGETHER.
What does the Hocking Principle mean for quality? While I've not read Amanda Hocking's novels and don't mean to disparage her, many writers would find a loss of quality in writing books as quickly as she does.
I don't have any answers, but I do have some observations that may help you decide how many books a year to write:
Stress can kill.
There's a learning curve for everything, including writing well.
Success comes most readily to those who focus on what they personally are called to do rather than on copying someone else.
Some genres lend themselves to rapid writing, and some do not.
Quality tends to take time and thought.
Family obligations are important.
It's important to live in the real world at least as much as you do in your imaginary ones.
Some people could afford to develop the discipline and step up the pace of their writing.
It might be a good strategy to write a series of related books in a longer time frame, and hold off so you can release them months apart.
The vast majority of self-published novelists don't sell many books.
© 2010 Janalyn Voigt
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