How many books should you try to publish in a given year? This is another post inspired by a recent read and, as usual, I won’t be naming names. I will say up front that I do like this author and I’ve read a few of her stories. She writes cozy mysteries and they fall right in line with the typical examples of the genre. I’ll be honest, I haven’t read all of her books but she has one series that is a little bit outside the box, and I’ve followed it over the last couple of years.
This lady also happens to be one of those very prolific authors that tends to crank out a lot of books. There was a span of time when it felt like she was publishing a book every single month.
Everyone writes at their own pace, but it does raise the question of how much and how fast can an author publish before either their health, integrity or the quality of their work is compromised?
A book a month?
Is that legit? Or is it AI witchcraft? Honestly, I think this particular author really was writing that many books. As I said, she’s a cozy mystery author and she has several ongoing series. When you write a book in a series it can be faster to complete because each book builds on the previous ones and you don’t have to lay as much groundwork.
It’s also possible that she had a stack of books squirreled away that she’d already written and then published them in quick succession. I did that with the first chunk of my Maiden Harlow books, it took a couple of years to write them, but I did that work before I’d decided that I definitely wanted to start publishing. I was able to release the first few books fairly close together. So, it does happen.
I also believe that this author does her own writing because her publishing speed has backed off now. And she has spoken of some health issues that delayed her book releases a few times. Computers don’t get sick or injured, people do.
But, however it’s achieved, there is often a price to be paid for that high amount of book output. It can take me months to write a book, depending on the story. Some are quicker than others but there are a lot of things that factor in.
My mystery books tend to come together faster, partly because there isn’t as much world building as there is in my fantasy books. But I don’t rush to get anything out, and the mere idea of trying to churn out a book every single month is exhausting. Let’s briefly look at a few potential dangers of rushing to publish.
The compromises of a high publish rate
If you do your own writing, and don’t have a backlog at the ready, it makes sense that you aren’t going to weave a gob-smacking masterpiece every few weeks. You need to have a reasonable amount of time to work with. If speed is the primary goal, you’ll probably have to cut some corners. But you still need to write a half-decent book or readers will lose interest. So what do you do?
Publish short books
In the case of this particular author, she tends to keep her books short. That’s an obvious way to get more books done fast, but it doesn’t leave much room for developing main or side characters. If a writer isn’t careful, they’ll churn out a bunch of clichés that border on stereotypes because they’re quick to establish.
There also isn’t much space for adding any other subplots. That does aid speed, subplots take time to develop and to blend in with the rest of the book. Shorter books can often stick to one main plot with only a vague mention of anything else.
Short stories are respectable and legitimate options; the target audience may only want a quick and easy read. These stories may end up being less engrossing though, that’s the trade-off. Also, price needs to be taken into account. Readers are sometimes annoyed if a short story tries to command the same price as a full-length novel.
Weak plots
The author in question also keeps the content quite sparse. The mystery plot itself is usually pretty thin. Her main characters are likeable enough to carry the fact that the identity of the killer is almost always a let down.
In saying that, I have only read one series in her sizeable collection because I know they are all on the fluffier side. Cringe-worthy character and town names and simplistic plots are pretty much guaranteed. That is a widely accepted trait of many cozy mysteries.
That degree of cutesy really isn’t my thing, my books are more of an in-between blend of cozy charm but deeper character and plot development. But a lot of people want the tried and tested formula of a mass-produced cozy. That’s totally fine and they can be a lot of fun. But the waters usually don’t run deep.
Added to this, many cozy mystery writers, including the one I’m discussing here, are in Kindle Unlimited. The nature of KU’s pay structure strongly favors cranking out fluffy books at a high rate. I don’t say that as a slight, I promise. It just means simple and formulaic plots that tick the main boxes that many readers expect. And doing it frequently.
Mild motives
Quickly published books rarely have time for compelling and carefully thought out motives. That would require effective backstories and there simply isn’t room for that if you have very little space to work within. This isn’t necessarily a problem as long as the reader isn’t expecting too much depth.
I’ve read (and not enjoyed, I must admit) several books where the motive was way too weak to realistically push someone to take a life. I swear to you, one book had a killer unleashing vengeful hell because someone rented the shop that she wanted for her own business. So she set out on a remarkably far-fetched vendetta to kill the woman’s innocent daughter for revenge.
Would you not just find another stupid shop to rent? Seriously.
But if an author has a very tight deadline, there isn’t time for mulling things over and adding complexity. The first draft would, by necessity, be a fast and direct lead in to the finished version.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it would surely be difficult to write a really good book with a serious villain in that span of time, over and over again. Building legitimate and satisfying bastardry takes patience and care.
Repetition and amnesia
Another ploy that I see creep in to the frequent publisher’s work is an overuse of the same tropes or plot devices. In the case of the book series I’m looking at is a persistent and now hard to explain dislike between two of the regular characters.
Specifically, it’s two ladies that are rivals in both business and personal life. They hate each other, the ‘villain’ is snide and snarky, yet they have provided deeply personal and meaningful help to each other on more than one occasion. So…how many times does your annoying enemy have to come through and save your bacon before they aren’t your full-blown sworn enemy any more?
Apparently many, many times.
It’s harmless enough in the broader scope of the series but it’s a wee bit overused at this point. Speaking as a reader, I saw another case of the begrudging truce coming many chapters away and that does weaken the story. Mysteries should at least try not to be predictable, it helps maintain the mystery.
Another go-to is conveniently forgetting that a villainous slanderer is unreliable or that blundering in like a drunken elephant to rudely confront a suspect almost never works. They are easy ways of pushing the plot forward, but easy isn’t always good.
What’s a good publish rate?
The obnoxious but true answer is this: publish however many books you can write well.
That will change for everyone, and it may change from one year to the next depending on what’s happening in the author’s life, but bear in mind that writing is a process. It isn’t just sitting down and whipping out a mind-blowing whodunit and slapping it up on online retailers.
There’s the premise, the timeline that assures continuity, the character profiles that add consistency and depth, a satisfying motive, a killer that would actually believably kill, enough suspects to hide the true killer so they aren’t the most obvious culprit and on and on.
Writing well isn’t easy. Slapping a crappola AI slop-fest onto Amazon is, but it won’t take you as far as you might hope. Quite frankly, if a person doesn’t have the skill set to write a book themself, they likely won’t have the skills to effectively polish something that was made for them.
What about those that feel a need to publish more content to appease their readership? Well, that’s a personal business decision. There are compromises to be made, as discussed, but that may suit some writers and writing styles.
Slow versus quick
Personally, I don’t see the point in publishing a book that I’m not fully happy with just to make a quota. I like more depth, more bite and more meat on the bone. It takes a little more time and I think it’s time well spent. That’s my personal writing style.
Others excel at writing quick reads, and some readers look for quick reads. The question that each writer needs to answer for themselves is what sort of storyteller they are. For readers, it’s not as big of a decision, since they can read an endless variety.
It’s the author that needs to bring their best work to the table. That might be twisty, meaty and more character rich stories. Or it might be light, easy reads that don’t require the same level of care. Both styles have a place in readers’ lives. The key is to simply tell the stories that you want to tell, because those will always be your best.
Have a thought to share?