ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT INTERVIEW ON TITANIC

Thursday, August 8, 2013

The New Publishing World: Quanity over Quality

You must know that publishing has changed. Well it has. It is driven by algorithms...specifically algorithms coded by Amazon. And in this world more is better. Amazon recognizes content and it doesn't matter what kind of content. As long as it is new. Authors know this, especially kindle authors and so the new mantra is quantity over quality. Gone are the authors who spend years on books and then publish. There are now authors who publish every week. Some every few days. It is a very different world out there.

And these authors have sales to prove it. Some. Not all of course. But Amazon ranks the authors with a lot of books higher than the ones who have just a few. Now this is not official but it is known among the successful book marketers. And so people publish just about anything. A short story. A novella. A novel. A one page story. It doesn't really matter in this bits and bytes world. As long as you have the next book ready to go.

Series rule. They are the gold standard now. You must have a series. This accomplishes several things. One a book followed by another gets the same reader. Two it keeps the publishing rocking so Amazon can recognize this is an author who deserves to be pushed. So we have this quantity over quality modality that is now putting immense pressure on authors. Everyone feels it who buys into the whole "its a brave new world out there and I must adapt" mantra. Even I have stared eyeing old manuscripts...maybe...

But there is also this. One good book can outsell a hundred bad books. It is all how you want to build your spaceship. My books usually take years. But who knows. Maybe I can shorten that up. At least by a year or so.

The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have

Books by William Hazelgrove