On the importance of Prolificacy

I don't think I need to tell anyone that times are changing in the world of publishing.

I have stated this sentiment many times in my blogs already.

Publishing is changing before our eyes in a myriad of ways, but I have only recently worked out another way it has changed.

I suppose I should be slightly embarrassed (and I am, but really only a little) but I am new to this whole process. A learning curve is to be expected. Still, I think this particular change should have been more obvious to me. Especially considering that the change started to happen even before the explosion of self-publishing ebooks.

The dictum used to be: Sell one or maybe two books a year to a massive amount of people.

That was the goal. That's what every writer wanted to be. The next Stephen King, John Grisham, Anne Rice or James Patterson. Sell roughly a million copies of one or two books a year and sit back in your mansion.

For a long time that worked. I mean, it worked for the less than one percent of authors that sold that many books. For the mid-listers who were still bound by the same stuffy rule (the market won't bear more than two books a year) they scraped by as best they could.

As famous as Stephen King was his creation of Richard Bachman was 1. to see if he could replicate his previous success, but also 2. Because his publisher simply didn't believe the market would bear him releasing so many books per year.

Now everything has changed. There are still a few authors who sell a massive amount of books per year, but there is no more "rule" that you can only release a certain amount of books per year.

The dictum now is: Sell a lot of books per year to a smaller group of dedicated readers.

This philosophy probably wouldn't have worked in the days before the internet. You know what, you can scratch that probably out. It definitely wouldn't have worked in the days before the internet. Because the publishers were right. Hardback books once cost between twenty and thirty dollars for fiction, depending on their size. Expecting a fan to shell out about a hundred dollars a year for your books was too much to ask. Considering that people who read rarely read only one author. Sure a hundred dollars a year for books doesn't sound like a lot of money, but now multiply that by the three or four or more authors that a single reader buys and you're talking about breaking into food and mortgage money to support your book habit.

Now maybe some of us have broken into those piggy banks to pay for our fiction addiction, but it's unreasonable to expect everyone to do that.

So yes, the publishers were right. That would have been too much to ask from the general public.

After the internet, things have changed. Books no longer cost thirty dollars. Even major authors with serious followings rarely price their ebooks more than twelve dollars for a new release. And there are many more who are below ten dollars.

For us independent authors, our books are normally under five dollars.

Five dollars per month equals sixty dollars per year. Or exactly the cost of two thirty dollar hardcovers per year.

Now I'm not advocating that you publish a book a month. I mean, if you can do it, more power to you, but I know I'm not that prolific. A book every two months? I know I could do that, with a little room to spare.

Prices have come down, cost of advertising has come down. Discoverability has gone up. Readers are getting more adventurous because there's gold in them there Amazon hills.

It's simple math really. The more books you publish the more books you sell. The more books you sell the more people discover you and the bigger your fan-base gets.

We live in a fast-paced world now. If you're out of the limelight for five minutes people are apt to forget you. It is more important than ever to be able to deliver a good product quickly and keep on delivering.

Those that thrive in this new world of publishing will be the ones who can keep up with demand.

Those who can't or won't will always be relegated to the slow lane, watching the industry pass them by.