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Showing posts from June, 2012

Publish or perish?

Many bestselling authors, especially in the mystery and romance genres, seem to publish a new book about once a year, often timed to come out late in the year (for Christmas and holiday sales) or late spring (to read on vacation). Recently, there was an article in the New York Times about how many authors are under increasing pressure from their publishers to write not one, but two (or more!) books a year. Why the increased pressure? Say the publishers, audiences are increasingly used to the immediate gratification of being able to download an e-book, a movie, a game on demand, and if an author can't keep her name in the public eye, she's likely to be forgotten in the crush of options available to the online world. Uh- huh . My read? Print publishers are increasingly afraid that their relevance is on the brink of extinction. I mean, suppose you just enjoyed a book from a new author (new to you, anyway), and then found out that omigod, she doesn't have a backlist of anoth