Is mediocre good enough?

A post by James Scott Bell at Kill Zone Blog: Should You Go Ahead and Write Mediocre Books?

I’m going to provide a spoiler and say up front that Bell says no.

Here’s how his post starts:

What jumped out at me was a question about whether Big 5 publishers are using AI not only to create new “brand names” but also to extend established ones. West thinks the latter may already be happening … And this is not to mention the thousands (tens of thousands?) of indies using AI to publish dozens of novels and novellas in the time it usually takes an old-school author to write one book.

I have serious doubts about this, actually. Please point to actual examples of that. Any examples will do. I mean this West who made that assertion should have pointed to examples, but if any of you actually know about complete novels being generated, published, and presented as real novels by real people, I would like to know about that.

Bell is making his way toward a pointer to this other post by Joe Konrath: On Writing Shit:

I spend a full 1/3 of my time as a writer trying to make a grade B book into a grade A book. I think I’m wasting my time. Why write longer? Why write better? What’s the benefit? Readers will forgive me if I phone-in a book. Or four. Especially with a series. As long as my first 12 are solid, I could probably make the next 6 mediocre, or even shitty, and most of my fanbase will stick with me. …

I think I need to get out of my own way, stop letting perfect be the enemy of good, and see what happens. … I like to think that I’ve written some good, even great, books. My numbers bear this out. Longtime fans will stick with me if I write something so-so.

Given Fifty Shades, I don’t quite think I’d want to argue that numbers alone are an indication that a book is great, or even good. Numbers indicate something else, that the book is catchy. That’s it. That’s what popularity tells you about a book. Nothing else.

But here’s Bell’s response to Konrath’s post:

Yes, sure, if you want to put out product, lots of it, and fast, without laboring over it, you can. Especially with AI. You can even make money that way. … but something in me makes me need to hand make my cookies, one by one, with some effort to make them as tasty as I can. I still think there are readers who appreciate that. I don’t know the financial ramifications of writing with care versus pumping out mediocrities. It’s impossible to design an A/B test without a time machine. But that’s my recipe and I’m sticking to it.

***

What do you think? Leaving aside the question of whether you can generate dozens of mediocre but readable books in a month with AI, which again, I have serious doubts about that. But leaving that aside: Can bestselling authors get away with writing crappy books — or generating crappy books — while continuing to maintain their bestseller status?

It’s plain that sometimes they can.

A lot of established, bestselling authors were never that great at writing in the first place, yet they not only hit it big, they continue to hit it big. Their readers are okay with books that are in some respects pretty crappy. The books may, of course, be good in other ways. I’m thinking of obvious examples like The Da Vinci Code. The review I just linked is funny and you should read it, but I actually chose this review because it illustrates how terrible writing can still be appealing to a lot of readers. The reviewer is very much aware that the writing is terrible, but enjoyed the book anyway and explains how the book succeeded for him.

I’m also thinking of the one and only James Patterson novel I read — Maximum Ride. I read it because I was curious to see what Patterson was doing right. I found out. The story was quick, facile, and reasonably fun. The writing wasn’t as epically awful as Dan Brown’s writing; in fact, the writing itself was pretty okay at the sentence level. The story suffered from huge plot holes and serious deus ex problems. Plainly Patterson’s readers are fine with those weaknesses.

Not all readers are okay with epically terrible writing or gaping plot holes. I’m generally not okay with either. I never picked up another Patterson novel. But there are exceptions. I did like the Harry Potter series, except for the last book, and the worldbuilding in that series doesn’t hold together at all. What I’m basically saying is that if the author is good enough at some things, they can do a crappy job at other things and produce a catchy book. As long as they keep doing a good job at the things they’re good at, their readers will continue to find their books catchy, and so they should. Whatever was appealing about the books continues to be appealing.

But how about if the author starts dialing it in, as Konrath suggests would be practical? Konrath is arguing, in the linked post, that it makes financial sense to just stop bothering to do a good job, that an author who used to write good books won’t lose readers if they turn out four crappy books in a row, that this is a good strategy for authors who could write better books because fast is better than good. You can click through and read his whole post, but I’m telling you, that is literally what he’s saying.

I … am having a hard time with that.

***

I think it’s clearly true that some established, bestselling authors show an obvious and striking decline in the quality of their books. Not to throw stones, but fine, I’m going to mention an example. Anybody else a fan of the early Anita Blake novels? I loved them. Then the series turned into erotica — that’s a kind term — and torture porn — that’s the exact term. By ten or fifteen books into the series, each so-called novel included a short story’s worth of plot very thinly wrapped around sex and torture scenes to create a pretense of a novel. I see the series is up to thirty books. I read about ten. That was more than I should have, but enough to establish with certainty that this huge decline in quality had taken place. But, looking at the series page, I see that the series shows only a mild decline in average star rating, with a lot of the early ones hitting 4.7, then a slow decline with drops as low as 4.0, but the thirtieth book is at 4.6. What I think happened is that Hamilton lost plenty of readers, but she also picked up different readers.

The 47 Xanth novels are another example. I read a lot of them when I was in high school. I liked a lot of the early ones, thought they clearly deteriorated, and quit. I had no idea the author was still writing them, but the most recent came out in 2023. Looking at the series page on Amazon, wow, I’ve never seen such a huge dichotomy between Amazon and Goodreads ratings. Massively more ratings on Goodreads, but average star ratings nearly a full star lower on Goodreads. I’m sure that happens, I just haven’t ever noticed it before. Also, I’m seeing a huge decline in the number of ratings on Goodreads, with the first book having more than 45,000 ratings and then a gradually steepening decline with a big drop after the 20th book and another around the 30th book. The most recent book has 97 ratings on Goodreads — 0.2% of the number for the initial book. That’s not 2.0%. That’s 0.2%

That’s not just a question of how long each book has been out. Among other things, Goodreads didn’t exist when the first book came out — the internet didn’t exist when that book hit the shelves, and wouldn’t for years and years. But it doesn’t even matter. No amount of passing time will push the book with 97 ratings up to nearly 50,000 ratings. It’s not going to happen. That’s literally a popularity drop of three orders of magnitude. This looks to me like a series where the author started writing crappy books and lost a LOT of readers without picking up different readers. The Xanth novels must still be making money, since they’re still coming out, but it looks to me like this is a series that refutes Konrath’s argument that readers, once in the habit of buying books by an author, will keep buying them regardless of a decline in quality.

***

When I love an author’s books, I buy them all. As long as the quality stays high, I don’t get tired of a series, ever. That’s how I’m wired as a reader.

Here’s something interesting that I noticed about myself as a result of writing this post: The more I love a series, the less tolerant I am of a severe drop in quality. I have a much, much harder time dealing with a drop from excellent to bad than a drop from good to bad.

I think Konrath is basically right in how far I will follow an author who used to write good books and is now writing crappy books: I’ll read about four crappy books.

Then I will get rid of those four, maybe get rid of some or all of the earlier books in the series, and never touch another book by the author again, ever. Anita Blake was one example. Xanth is another. Stephen King is another. It would seem weird to me if many readers kept spending money on crappy books no matter how many crappy books the author churned out. I don’t know how many readers are about as forgiving as I am — or about as unforgiving as I am. I wonder how Konrath would feel about this clever notion of writing crappy books fast if he knew that, when he hit his fourth crappy book, a significant proportion of readers would throw his books away and never again touch anything he wrote.

Regardless, I’m a lot less forgiving when I love a series. When I read Teckla, I hated it, and worse, I thought it objectively showed a huge drop in quality compared to the first two books in the series, and worst of all, everything bad about it directly contradicted character and worldbuilding elements from the earlier books. Despite this, I bought the next book in the series and gradually started more or less trusting Brust again, but ONE more book on a par with Teckla and I would have stopped reading the series. I’m slower to read the new books as well — even now. I haven’t read the most recent two. Though I will, eventually. Probably.

I really loved the Mercy Thompson series and associated series. Patricia Briggs is the author who got me to decide to write my own UF series, so I mean I really enjoyed it a lot. But one book I disliked was enough to make me quit reading the series. One.

My favorite SFF series ever is Cherryh’s Foreigner series, but, with the 20th book, I was appalled at a huge continuity problem plus a second less-huge continuity problem. I haven’t recovered. I’ve found myself unable to read the most recent book in the series because of this problem with the 20th book.

I think what happens is that I’m afraid awful later books will reach back toward the earlier books and spoil them in retrospect. I think this readiness to walk away from a series after one or at most two strikingly inferior books is defensive. I think I’m guarding the earlier books. I don’t want to let the author spoil them. Readers who don’t re-read books might not have that issue. I love re-reading books and re-read all the time.

***

I do, by the way, expect to eventually dislike a book by every author whose work I love. I’m not sure there are any exceptions to the rule that if an author writes 10 or more books, I’ll dislike one. And that’s okay! I don’t mind! It’s not reasonable to expect to love every single novel by a prolific author! If an author changes how they’re handling a series or a character for reasons of their own evolving tastes, fine, whatever, I may not follow them through that change, but that’s perfectly legitimate and other readers may well pick up that author’s books and more power to them.

But disliking a book, or disliking the direction an author has a series, isn’t the same as feeling that the author is deliberately dropping standards in a series because they can’t be bothered to do a good job. That’s a really repellant idea. Even bold italics isn’t enough to express how repellant that idea is.

You know what I think the difference is between Konrath’s attitude and mine? The heart of the difference?

Konrath is treating books as products that are more or less commercially viable, but worthless in and of themselves. Literally as objects that have no intrinsic worth to him as the author. He might as well be digging a ditch for someone. A ditch has no intrinsic value. It’s a ditch. You dig it to get paid. You don’t care if it’s a good ditch. It does not need to be a beautiful ditch. If it’s deep enough to hold a pipe or direct water runoff, it’s fine. It’s a ditch.

That’s not how I think of books at all. I bet you can tell.

I want and expect readers to continue reading my books after I’m dead. They are literally a legacy I’m handing to the future. Or I sure hope they are. I definitely want them to be. I’m making a note right now to look at KDP’s page that tells you what clause to put in your will so your heirs can take over your books. I’m literally scribbling “check KDP about will” on a piece of paper so I won’t forget to do that in the near future. That is what Konrath’s post makes me think of: that if he wants to write crappy books and forget about them immediately, whatever, but we are not doing the same thing at all.

tl;dr: No, mediocre is not remotely good enough.

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