The Rapid Release Craze is Hurting Authors and the Quality of Books

When I say rapid release, this is how I define it: Rapid release is where you set the goal of writing and publishing a new book every 6-8 weeks.

I understand why this craze came to be a thing. Readers can read a book or two a day. There is no effort in reading. It’s a passive activity, like watching TV. I mean, it can seem like effort if you’re not enjoying it, but if you aren’t enjoying it, you can stop doing it. As a rule, readers are choosing what to read. This is fun for them. It’s easy to consume this product.

Writing the book, however, is a lot different. It takes time to come up with the idea. Some ideas take years to properly develop. Then you have to figure out how to execute that idea in an entertaining way that will keep the reader engaged. (I get not all readers enjoy the same book, but there is always going to be someone out there who will enjoy the book that has been written.) Then there’s the matter of getting the cover, having the thing edited, formatted, and published. It takes time to do all of that. I honestly believe this is why so many writers are running to ghostwriters and AI to do the writing for them. It is hard to keep up with that hectic pace long term. You can do it short term, but when you’ve been at this for years, it takes a toll on you.

Some people write faster than others, but there is not a single person out there who is a robot, and sooner or later, real life shows up to knock you down. You can’t continually pump books out like a widget on an assembly line. Not on your own efforts, anyway. It’s not healthy. The human brain needs time to relax. The human body needs to move around. The human spirit needs emotional connection with other people. We can’t spend all of our time in front of a computer writing the next book. I believe walking and dictating a book takes away from the creative break that walking provides. I think, to be a healthy writer, we need to detach ourselves from our work on a regular basis. Otherwise, I think the writing becomes stale. For writing to be fresh, the creative part of the brain needs to rest. Sometimes I think the best thing we can do for our writing is to spend time with loved ones and/or doing something we love that has nothing to do with writing. The more fulfilled we are in other areas of our lives, the more fulfilling our stories will be. Writing for the long haul is a marathon, not a sprint.

I’m not a fan of ghostwriting. I think it makes you a publisher because you’re not writing the story. To be a writer, you need to write. But ghostwriting has become popular among the self-publishing crowd because of the rapid release craze. Writing has gone from something people did for love to something people do for money. When money is the focus, you want to do everything you can to keep those books coming out. Unless you have a side gig that pays the bills, you need those books to keep money pouring in. The problem with ghostwriters is that they want to be paid. I think AI is going to replace a lot of ghostwriters because AI doesn’t need to get paid. Sure, you’ll pay a subscription service to use AI, but that service is cheaper than paying a person to do the work. There’s a debate going on about whether AI can create stories worth reading. I think AI will be able to reach that level for those “write to market” books because AI is good at imitation. And writers who are motivated by money will want to use AI because there’s no way a human being can keep writing books on the rapid release schedule for years and years on end.

While AI books might satisfy for the moment, I don’t see how they can satisfy long term. I don’t believe the quality will be there in those books. I just don’t see how AI will ever be able to replace human creativity. I think AI books will be cookie cutter type of stories. They’ll be forgettable. If your goal is money, this works fine. You’re just looking to sell a widget.

At the end of the day, I think AI’s appeal will be for those authors looking for a short cut in creating a book. I don’t believe those books will have that great of quality. Maybe they’ll be polished, but the story itself will probably be lacking that human creative edge. AI might mimic a lot of things, but I don’t see how it can have “heart” in its work. I remember years ago (maybe a decade ago) when I was full of my own pride and thought I knew all there was to know about selling books. I was in the whole rapid release and make good money trip. To this day, I remember one of the comments I received from a writer who said that they would rather focus on getting a good story out there that would touch people long after they died. At the time, I told this person that I would rather make the money. Well, I did make the money. And that money is all gone. The dirty little secret no one seems to be willing to accept is that those highs don’t last forever. Sooner or later, things go back down.

All I know is that the books I wrote that I invested myself in still matter to me to this day, and a few readers out there still reread them. I don’t see how AI will ever be able to produce those types of books. To produce those books, you need your creativity to be at its best, and to do that, you will need to give yourself time to work on your health, work on your relationships, and work on other things that interest you. You can’t be glued to your computer all the time.

I started reading because it was an escape. The middle school years were rough for me. Long story short, those books I read were my friends. I put myself in those characters’ shoes and lived all sorts of adventures. Those stories still make me smile when I think back on them, and now I’m all grown up with kids who are reaching adulthood. But I remember those stories, and I still love them. I started writing because I loved reading first. Those stories helped make me the writer I am today. They will always have a special place in my heart, and I’m glad for the writers who took the time to write them, even though those books are no longer being published. Those books have been forgotten by the majority of people, just like our books someday may be forgotten by most people. But who knows if they will be remembered decades from now by a few? Maybe something you’ve written might change someone’s life for the better.

It is unfortunate that books have become nothing more than a widget to a lot of people. Storytelling is such a beautiful gift. When you write something that you love, the story means something. At the end of the day, people are still people. We need human connection. When I read a book the author loved writing, I feel that I get to know something about that author. That book is a part of who they are. When I get a chance to talk to that author, it makes me appreciate that person a lot more.

This human connection is what is lost when we’re in a rush to get books out there. There’s a difference between writing fast and rushing, and I’m talking about rushing. Rushing is about rapid release. Rushing hurts the quality of your work. And I believe that rushing ends up harming your physical and emotional health. The best long term strategy for a writer who wants to keep their love for writing alive is to take a deep breath, relax, and do what you can to nurture your creative spirit.

I write all of this after dealing with burnout for a couple of years now. I even got the point of hating the process of writing, even though I did enjoy the stories I was creating. I am just now getting to the point where I love writing again. It makes a huge difference when you love the process.