E-Books aren't Fastlane. You should quit...

[Breaking Free]

I can assure you that, as a fiction reader and writer, those word counts matter. If you listen to your readers, they want a story with length AND quality.

No one said we were writing drivel, or filler.

Am I a reader and a consumer? Why yes I am.

As a reader, I stay away from authors that love to hear themselves talk

I actually don't read fiction

So, I'm struggling to see how your feedback is coming across as anything but hate. If you wrote or read fiction, you'd understand why 70k for a novel (or a string of novellas) is significant. Some writers take twice that to tell the story they want to tell.

 

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[dknise]

Trust me. The writers who think, "What I wrote today was F*cking profound" are usually full of crap. I've participated in a lot of writing groups over the years. Self-confidence is rarely an indicator of quality.

That is a very, very good point haha. I think in the business sense there's a difference between personal meaning and knowing it will have meaning for many people.

That being said, what I wrote today was so F*cking profound that the heavens opened and angels wept. And, as I sat at my lonely keyboard, bathed in sweat and the glory of their divine adoration, I thought, "Shit, I need to write at least 1,000 more words today, or I'll never finish this book by Christmas."
"

YES! That's all I wanted to see here. I'm glad you are writing words you believe have meaning.

 

[dknise]

So, I'm struggling to see how your feedback is coming across as anything but hate. If you wrote or read fiction, you'd understand why 70k for a novel (or a string of novellas) is significant. Some writers take twice that to tell the story they want to tell.

I'm not quite sure you actually read what I wrote?

Another part of business is taking criticism. If you want a cheerleader then a business forum is the wrong place for it. People poke gigantic holes in my projects all the time, but I take that criticism and solve their problem with my product. We talk a lot about the meaning of time here on this forum. If someone is giving you their time, they're giving you respect. I'm taking the time to write out this post to you right now.

 

[COSenior]

Wow. Just wow. Those are incredible numbers, bravo!!!

Thank you. Unlike you, I have all day to write. And all I do is write down the movie in my head. It varies between 1000 and 2000 words an hour. Dialog slows me down because of the punctuation. And what I write is f***ing profound.

 

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[ChickenHawk]

I'm glad you are writing words you believe have meaning.

Thanks for this. I also think it's important to realize that the concept of "having meaning" will vary by project. Some books "have meaning" if people enjoy masterbating to them. Some books "have meaning" if they make people laugh. Some books "have meaning" if they offer a momentary escape from the daily grind.

A lot of us are genre writers. We're not looking to write the next War and Peace, but rather something we hope will entertain our readers and satisfy whatever need they currently have, whether it's the need for physical release, the need to laugh, or the need to escape reality, even if only for an hour or two.

As a reader, those are the types of books that appeal to me. And looking at the best-seller lists, I know I'm not alone.

 

[Breaking Free]

And looking at the best-seller lists, I know I'm not alone.

Heh, let's be honest, some of those best seller lists are filled with what most of us would call literary garbage... they set the bar fairly low.

 

[Breaking Free]

Quote Originally Posted by dknise
Another part of business is taking criticism. If you want a cheerleader then a business forum is the wrong place for it. People poke gigantic holes in my projects all the time, but I take that criticism and solve their problem with my product. We talk a lot about the meaning of time here on this forum. If someone is giving you their time, they're giving you respect. I'm taking the time to write out this post to you right now.

And I respect that, but looking at what you wrote in contrast to HFR you imply he didn't write quality.

No writer is going to ever say "I wrote 70k words of crap in three weeks." If we didn't think we had a message to say, we wouldn't write those words, so a 70k achievement.

I wouldn't release 7 words of crap, let alone 70k. And I don't believe any fiction writer here worth their salt would do the same thing.

 

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[jon.a]

Why all the drama? If the righters are righting right, the marketplace will tell them. If not, the marketplace will tell them.

 

[dknise]

And I respect that, but looking at what you wrote in contrast to HFR you imply he didn't write quality.

Like I said earlier, there wasn't any discussion of the quality of writing here, just a discussion about the quantity.

Why all the drama?

It's a discussion forum, not an agreement forum haha.

 

[stefan]

Please take this question of mine as a small side pivot: I have no intentions of hijacking your thread.

What are the qualifications for becoming a "bestselling author" when you're self-publishing online through Amazon? Once you hit the top 100 paid/free list, are you then a bestseller?

Can you go as far as becoming a NY Times bestselling author when publishing online?

I'm just curious about the scalability of publishing online.

 

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[Rawr]

Funny timing, because the page I was on before I clicked over to this discussion was a goodreads review page of a top 5 romance book, that was COMPLETE SUGARY DRIVEL. Guess what the reviews said?

Oh my! Dear lord! OMG! What the hell did I just read?

Now I mean that in the best possible way...but wow that one did hurt! There were bits in this book that I just wanted to put the book down and walk away...something bad was gonna happen and I was gonna cry! I had my heart ripped out of my chest....slapped about the face with it and then it was returned!

Seriously...this is a book that makes you laugh out loud, swoon like a love sick puppy and make you ugly cry all at the same time! I loved it!!

I fell head over heels in love with each and every character in this book, they were perfect, not over the top just right, no annoying female character either (BONUS)!! Not just one hot guy but TWO!!

Only 1 out of 20 reviews would be 2-3 stars, the rest 5. Those reviewers would ask "What did I read, because it wasn't what you guys read"




The drivel reviewed above is NYT list, where is your god now? So, dknsie do you understand how you are completely misunderstanding the business of writing popular fiction in 2013? I get what you are saying, but you are not talking to Hemingways here. The model is different. The READERS ARE NOT LIKE YOU. The readers who buy ROMANCE BOOKS are not like you. There is a bar of quality, and the readers now don't expect that bar to be very high if you get them what they want. Good writing will get recognized. Decent writing will still sell. Welcome to 2013

 

[dknise]

The drivel reviewed above is NYT list, where is your god now? So, dknsie do you understand how you are completely misunderstanding the business of writing popular fiction in 2013? I get what you are saying, but you are not talking to Hemingways here. The model is different. The READERS ARE NOT LIKE YOU. The readers who buy ROMANCE BOOKS are not like you. There is a bar of quality, and the readers now don't expect that bar to be very high if you get them what they want. Good writing will get recognized. Decent writing will still sell. Welcome to 2013

No, I still don't understand. haha

 

[Brad_7373]

I actually don't read fiction

Lol.

 

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[COSenior]

The drivel reviewed above is NYT list, where is your god now? So, dknsie do you understand how you are completely misunderstanding the business of writing popular fiction in 2013? I get what you are saying, but you are not talking to Hemingways here. The model is different. The READERS ARE NOT LIKE YOU. The readers who buy ROMANCE BOOKS are not like you. There is a bar of quality, and the readers now don't expect that bar to be very high if you get them what they want. Good writing will get recognized. Decent writing will still sell. Welcome to 2013

I'll say one thing for the fly in the ointment. A lot of good points have come from trying to answer. But, (and dknsie, please don't take the analogy personally) you might as well be arguing with a fencepost. Never gonna get agreement, give it up and do something productive instead.

 

[Jonleehacker]

In an argument the opportunity is not to try and get an agreement, or to try and get the other person to change their mind, the opportunity is to see the other person's point of view, no matter how painful or upsetting it may be to your own status quo.

I love the threads her about fiction writing and what it has brought to this forum and my own life (I have been inspired by HfR's thread to write 4 non-fiction books, with more coming), but the fact that dknsie can trigger an emotional reaction tells me that there is something worth considering in the point of view that he is presenting. Not saying that the "something" is exactly what he is saying, but it is triggering a discomfort that is inside of whoever is getting triggered.

When I was grinding out affiliate websites and making good money, people would say similar things to me and I would defend my affiliate business model until my last breath. Five years later, and I realize they were right, it was a broken model and I wish I would have figured out how to put more of my Soul into my business a lot sooner.

 

[santa]

Wow...what happened in this thread!
But what's good, is with disagreement, can come some good or inspiring ideas (wow on 89k couple!)

I think there may have been some miscommunication
It's NOT
Quality > Quantity

It's NOT
Quantity < Quality



I just made that on paint, so forgive the amateurishness of it, but the quality should be high enough for my objective...which is what matters

Blue line represents a high quality product, which has less quantities produced.
Green represents a low quality product where more is produced.
Red is somewhere in between.

The grey point, represents the mythical sweetspot. Where we get the right mix between quantity produced vs quality (resources needed to produce the product at 'x' level quality -> which is usually associated with time and money invested...although they don't necessarilly always correlate).
This is a bit simplistic, but makes the point. It's often a tradeoff of resources

The sweetspot, will depend on your objectives, if I am an airline I could go down the blue line strategy of say, creating a premuim product, or the greenline strategy and have a no frills service.


Dknise DID have a point. I've seen it in other places. I've known people who boast about their word count figures, and when I've seen what they produced, it was pure sh*t. But at the same time, I think it was a given (by me at least), that HrR was talking about words of a certain level of 'quality' already.

Also, it can be a common hurdle for writers to focus on what they perceive as 'quality' and end up getting writer's block or continually rewriting looking for an extra 5% that isn't worth pursuing


Our goal, and it obviously applies to every business is to find that sweetspot that will maximise our profit/reach/happiness/contribution to the world or whatever we are aiming for.


And just to give people a heads up inregards to kindle/publishing, I've seen both those that lean to the blue line, and produce one or two books a year, be VERY successful, as I've seen others who produce 5-10k stories. There ARE different models of success out there. It's finding what can work for you.



But the point in HfR original post holds true. He gave examples of output, as it's an easy way to measure and show someone work ethic. And that's what it's about. This is not an easy path, and you're also dancing with the devil when you are trying to work with someone like Amazon, but those that are willing to work HARD *can* make things happen potentially...which applies to other ventures too of course.




Thinking out loud...one thing I have noticed, is that the 'recent' posts chart on the main forum page is often filled with a topic from this subcategory now...and has led to a little takeover, which, given the small niche, *may* be annoying to other posters (?), and taking away from other biz topics vs writing/author topics. If this is the case, it might be worth turning that subcategory off on the recent posts chart?

 

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[joanna]

The sweetspot, will depend on your objectives, if I am an airline I could go down the blue line strategy of say, creating a premuim product, or the greenline strategy and have a no frills service.

Great analogy. And though you didn't mention it explicitly, it assumes also meeting the minimum standard of say the health and safety regulations. That would apply to books too - even the ones focused on quantity have to have to meet some standard (not necessarily in the quality of writing or the "profoundness" department).

And on the note of profoundness.... No, I don't consider my books to be profound. I care for my erotica to be sexy and funny, but not profound. Some of my SFF veers into literary (to my own dismay and disbelief), and I did once or twice end up in tears while writing a scene, while dragging my characters through hell, but would I call the books profound? No.

Fiction isn't an instruction manual. In fact the modern close POV and a lot of showing over telling, does lend itself to longer word counts. No, I don't advocate padding the text just for word count sake, but fiction is often very much about the detail of the story. Otherwise you could just serve the reader the 30-50 word long logline sentence and be done with it.

Also for another down to earth analogy, some of us don't mind selling the literary equivalent of a McDonalds meal...

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I actually don't read fiction

Am I a reader and a consumer? Why yes I am.

This statements are contradictory.

In the rest of your post, you keep saying WRITE MORE. NO. Stop. Write less. Much less.

I couldn't disagree more. The more a writer writes, the better he will get. Likewise, the more a pianist plays, the better he gets. And it doesn't matter if the world hears the pianist's melodies, or are reserved for the pianist only.

Another part of business is taking criticism. If you want a cheerleader then a business forum is the wrong place for it. People poke gigantic holes in my projects all the time, but I take that criticism and solve their problem with my product. We talk a lot about the meaning of time here on this forum. If someone is giving you their time, they're giving you respect. I'm taking the time to write out this post to you right now.

Me thinks you're trolling here and not offering any type of feedback other than being critical to someone's productivity.

If you wrote a post that exclaimed "I wrote 30,000 lines of code this week! Hooray!"

And I chimed in, WITHOUT EVER SEEING YOUR CODE, "Yea, but the code probably sucks. Write less code. Quality > Quantity" -- I'm sure you'd get pretty defensive, huffing and puffing. Had I read your code, maybe I can claim that your code was mediocre.

The point I'm making here is I didn't see anyone here post a sample of their fictional writing to warrant a critique.

Who the heck are you to say that those 70,000 words sucked? Or were splendid? Ultimately, the market will decide and sometimes, the market's opinion will shock you. 50 Shades of Grey is a perfect example--I thought it was literary trash, and I say that with gray eyes and tousled hair.

Typically I enjoy reading your POV -- not so much here.

 

[dknise]

And I chimed in, WITHOUT EVER SEEING YOUR CODE, "Yea, but the code probably sucks. Write less code. Quality > Quantity" -- I'm sure you'd get pretty defensive, huffing and puffing. Had I read your code, maybe I can claim that your code was mediocre.

That's an impossible scenario, because I would be bragging about how little code it took me to come up with a particular solution. Elegance is beauty. But I do see your point.


I chimed in because of how much trash I've read lately from people worried about hitting a word count instead of an idea count. Whether it be internet articles, books, journals, anything, there are too many "writers" being

...experts in assembling words on a page. That's it.

I'll keep to myself now...

 

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[biophase]

That's an impossible scenario, because I would be bragging about how little code it took me to come up with a particular solution. Elegance is beauty. But I do see your point.

This is probably where the disconnect is...

Books have a perceived value in the number of pages. Websites do not.

Can you sell a paperback with 10 pages for $6.99? Probably not. Even though the guts of a story can be told in 10 pages, people want details! They pay for that.

If I paid you $10,000 to make a website and you deliver it with only 50 lines of code, do I feel scammed? Probably not because all I care about is if the website works. Maybe that's why your views are skewed.

 

[britnidanielle]

Trust me. The writers who think, "What I wrote today was F*cking profound" are usually full of crap. I've participated in a lot of writing groups over the years. Self-confidence is rarely an indicator of quality.

THIS!

I've never ever EVER met a writer (and I know several great ones) who think what they wrote was profound. We writers suffers from a profound LACK of self-confidence and are often times SUPER critical of our work.

I also find it interesting/odd that dknise is SOOOO concerned about "quality," but also admitted that s/he doesn't even read fiction.

So...there's that.

 

[joanna]

If I paid you $10,000 to make a website and you deliver it with only 50 lines of code, do I feel scammed? Probably not because all I care about is if the website works. Maybe that's why your views are skewed.

Funny you mention that. Some non-techies would be upset. "Hey, it's just 50 lines.... That must have taken you like less than half an hour, here's a fiver." Can you tell I'm a jilted coder? Yeah, talk to clients about benefits and their gains, not hours spent or lines of code. Otherwise madness that way lies...

 

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[Breaking Free]

Funny you mention that. Some non-techies would be upset. "Hey, it's just 50 lines.... That must have taken you like less than half an hour, here's a fiver." Can you tell I'm a jilted coder? Yeah, talk to clients about benefits and their gains, not hours spent or lines of code. Otherwise madness that way lies...

Ha! I still work in IT. I think that's why I chose writing for my fastlane... I needed to get away from technology and let my creative brain run free for awhile

 

[FDJustin]

In a past life I was a "paragraph roleplayer." this means someone who spends time getting together with other interested parties to create a fictional character, then interact with each other. Para-RPers were a special breed, they used more than a sentence to describe their actions, often describing other bits of a scene to enhance immersion. Bad para-rpers don't do this very well, what they say is disjointed or boring. Good ones can elegantly describe how their character blinks in a three to five sentence paragraph that only took them a minute to write. Usually unnecessary, but well crafted to the point I'd want to hide my stuff in a hole.

... But I digress. Without the right amount of details, displayed in the right way, things were bad. If there are too little details, the scene is flat and the characters are boring. On the other hand, you can have too many details, or delivery them awkardly and have something that's painful to read... But that's per action / scene / object, not the whole of a story.


Let's try to give an example...

John secretly pulls out his gun and looks at the bandit. "Give me your gun."

or

Johns leathery face turns a shade darker as he turns his head to the right, giving the bandit a good view of the pulsating vein that appeared the moment he saw the glock drawn. He puts the cig up to his lips and draws in a deep breath, watching from the corner of his eye to make sure the other man's distracted by the glowing cherry. He feigns a shrug for good measure; covering his other hand reaching his hip. "Kid." he starts, pausing to let the smoke from his lungs. "Give me your gun."


... The example tries to deliver a sense of tension, give you some insight to the character's thoughts and emotions without just explaining them, and attempts to animate the character so they don't feel fake.
If I was more skilled, the details and actions would transition well and draw the reader in.


Elegance is different in different places. This is how you elegantly sum an article.
"This isn't poetry; elegance is making your words work together, not crushing a complex message into a motivational poster."

 

[princephoenix]

Thank you for giving me my new desktop wallpaper, I've been looking for something like this for the last couple days.

Best of luck to you!

 

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[jimr]

Wow, just came up for air. Nearly 70,000 words in three weeks time! That's a new record for yours truly...

dknise, this is a fair observation to folks looking in from the outside. Before I began this journey, I walked around with the same limiting belief in my mind. You know, writing being "art" and all and that well, you just can't rush "art".

By the way, I am assuming you aren't an author by trade? I mean, I thought you were into software or whatever. I read one of your threads recently and thought it was great. Anyway, even if you aren't a writer, at least consider my perspective even if it doesn't resonate with you or anyone else who happens to read what I post.

See here's the dirty little secret that "hacks" everywhere (not to mention their millions of readers) don't want you to know... Writing alot does not equal poor writing.

Not by a long shot.

In fact, I have been increasingly dismayed at this forum that I thought was supposed to be about the Fastlane EXCEPT when it comes to books. And then, WELL, it's just not cool to be super productive, give your customers exactly what they want over and over again and fill up your bank account with a simple, repeatable PROCESS.

Somehow, that's just not okay here at the MILLIONAIRE FASTLANE FORUM if you write fiction!

Sheesh.

For the most part, being successful as a writer boils down to consistent production over a LONG period of time. It is a grind just like all the other entrprenueurial ventures here. Sorry, no shortcuts! Not sexy, I know.

But, let's look at it from another perspective. Perhaps you think I am engaging in hyperbole to make my point. I might be but I am an artist you know and well, we tend to do that.

Let's suppose I ran a septic system business and I came in here and said, "You know, I'm worth millions and I got rich cleaning shitters. And let me tell you, the secret is that it's all about how many shitters you clean."

People would go, "Well yeah, duh!" And that makes sense right? I mean, you are never going to clean ONE SHITTER that makes you a million bucks so IT'S ABOUT VOLUME (a.k.a SCALE).

By the way, save the jokes guys!

Anyway, everyone nods and goes, "Wow, that's a SOLID gameplan. He's an entrepreneur for REAL. There's a guy who knows the shitter business. He runs a shitter cleaning biz and dude cleans *A LOT* of shitters. I bet he makes millions. Hell, he could even franchise! Where do I sign up?"

Now, let's switch it what I do, write books.

Suddenly, people are aghast. "What? Writing is a noble pursuit that precious few can ever hope to master! How dare he suggest that the same principle which applies to volume toliet cleaning riches should apply to fiction. Heresy! Off with his head, post haste!"

Anyone see the irony here? I hope so. I'm starting to wonder about this place...

Look, here's the nasty, dirty truth of e-books, folks.

MOST of them don't sell.

NOT EVER.

Sure, there's outliers, the "million dollar" shitter king equivalents but most folks that make it and I mean MAKE IT where they can do it for the rest of their lives...

They write a lot.

And oh yeah, here's a corollary of that. There isn't a lot of "massive value" you can add to that equation every single time you post on a frickin' business forum and answer a variant of the same question that's been asked a bunch of different times. How many more ways can you say "write more" before people don't want to hear it? It's just like the shitter example above. Sure, you could have a shitter Facebook page and a shitter street team and run shitter Bookbub advertising equivalents but at the end of it all, it's about how many shitters did you clean/books did you sell?

So, leaving aside the examples in my signature for a moment, a writer I am acquainted with from another forum earned $89,000+ in October after four consecutive months of $40,000 each month+. Help me out here MFLers, that's closing in on the Fastlane, right?

Just so everyone knows, these sorts of results are not isolated incidents amongst people I KNOW that write on a regular basis. Most people that make a lot of money in fiction WRITE A LOT OF BOOKS. Most write more than one, five, ten, twenty and yeah, lots of them do tons of the kinds of marketing everyone else here does but above all else, THEY WRITE, period.

I am always amazed at how many people are looking for something, A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G, outside of Butt In Chair (BIC) to get results.

Incredible.

It's interesting that even here among very smart folks the idea that frequent output means bad content or worse, poor results.

CAPITAL B.S.

Wake up and smell the keyboard folks!

There are no gatekeepers here except for your readers. They vote with their pocketbooks per MFL 101.

Stephen King writes 1,500 words a day, every day and has for his entire career.
Russell Blake works twelve hours a day, every day.
Elle Casey has written 23,000 words in one day, TWICE.
H.M. Ward has writtten 37 books all the while suffering from unending health problems that keep her in hospitals for months on end.

If that wasn't enough let's not forget about the most prolific of them all, Corin Tellado, a Spanish Romance writer than penned more than 4,000 books in her lifetime and sold more than 400 million copies. And oh yeah, that was before self publishing.

At ONE CENT per copy, that's still $4,000,000. At $1 each, well... it's likely more than almost anyone here can lay claim to, MJ included.

Finally, back to my example above... The folks that cleared $89,000+ in October and before that $40,000 per month - month after month after month?

Rule #1 according to this husband/wife team that between the two of them, have well over 100+ titles???

WRITE A LOT OF BOOKS.

So, I get that if you have a belief about something, it's threatening to see it challenged and even worse, proven incorrect. But it's REALLY, REALLY, REALLY insulting to people who do this FOR A LIVING and satisfy TENS OF THOUSANDS of people every month to insinuate that because you don't happen to agree with how they do things that well, their work is sub par because you say so.

Give me an effin break!! Speak where you have knowledge and save yourself the favor of looking like a fool in the process.

Ridiculous.

BOOM! Epic post mate - one that aspiring authors should take note of.

 

[Lauryn]

Anyone can bang out 20k words of whatever, but painting a compelling story with compelling characters is as much talent as it is skill and practice. Those with more talent will find success much faster, but those without that talent have to work extra hard at the craft, I think.

Agreed. I've gotten messages from people who ask, "Does this book sell?" or "Does that book sell?" or "How can I make as much money as possible?"

Writing is simple. You stare at the screen or paper and let your eyes bleed. Simple is not easy. Putting together a story is not easy.

And I have yet to finish all the posts in this thread, but I need to touch on the need for you to invest in yourself and your skills. Writing can be a business model but it still requires an investment. I have to read techniques on marketing, book cover design, strategy and creating an effective outline. I have to put time in to review my work and correct errors, or pay someone else to.

Most of all, I need to focus on quality of work instead of rushing. These days there are lots of books, but they're rushed. The quality is mediocre. The story isn't gripping or interesting. The characters are "mlah"... and the overall delivery screams "F U, pay me."

That's not what makes you worth the pay in the long run. Create something - that, even if formulaic - helps the person, entertains the person, emotionally engages the person... and changes the person...

That's not always as simple as being an overnight publisher. It takes work, and it's going to show in the quality of your titles. Because building a backlist means nothing if all your work is choppy and useless. Held for Ransom's business model works because he's working it according to his talents and his mindset, and I'm 10,000% sure he's investing a lot into research, strategy and content development to respect the trust and pockets of those supporting his brands.

 

[Lauryn]

FYI.... 1,000-10,000 words is easily accomplished on a daily and consistent basis once you're in a zone.

Some people can punch it out so much quicker and maintain quality.

It shocks me that people gasp at the idea of 1,000 words per day.

Have you ever read an informative blog post? Those are easily 1,000+ words.

 

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[Thriftypreneur]

The quality / quantity debate seems to be never ending in the world of self-publishing.

Here's the thing: You have both outsiders looking in and even other writers who see people boasting about writing 5,000-10,000 words a day with consistency and it really starts to beg the question of how much quality is within that work. Why? Because to people who aren't producing at that level, it seems nigh impossible to produce a quality story at such a dizzying pace.

For example, reading about authors like Elle Casey who pretty much pump out 5k words a day on a part-time schedule, makes someone like me, who is still trying to break 500 words/hr, gawk in amazement because I just don't have that kind of flow yet. I have to know where my story is going to go in advance and flesh out scenes as I go, which makes it pretty hard to do 5k/day with any consistency. Additionally, many people struggle with the "ideas" department. So they often wonder how successful authors have this never ending supply of great, marketable stories to write; all while basically skipping the planning stage (or so it would appear to the outside eye).

As for DK's perspective, I think the thing he may be overlooking is that successful commercial authors aren't trying to make art that will go down in history. They're not trying to write the next War and Peace. They're simply trying to write what their market wants (which they become acutely attuned to with experience) and replicate it as fast as humanly possible - that's it. And as fastlaners, I'm really surprised that anyone would knock such a practice or idea.

Here's the thing I've noticed about writing sucess: There are two ends of the spectrum, with the vast, vast majority of authors somewhere in the middle:

On one end, you have the people who try and go for longer times between releases but higher quality stories, prose, etc. You see a lot of long-time novelists in this group; people who may have been fairly prolific early on but now just try and release one amazing title a year or something. I also group the anomaly takeoffs here too, like Hugh Howey, those that just find amazing traction with a story that can't be a replicated process.

Then you have the other end of the spectrum, where best-selling indie novelists like like HM Ward, Elle Casey, Russel Blake and others are pumping out titles so fast that it seems impossible to keep up with much less compete with.

But, here's the the thing I've been trying to come to terms with myself about production and success. As far as I can see, if you really want success as a novelist and to compete with the big boys in today's environment, you better figure out some way to be putting out a large chunk of words every single day. The rarity of slow producers hitting the big time with 1,2, or 3 books a year is just so small, that it's almost not even worth considering for new authors. It's certainly not worth considering with a fastlaner mentality because it's far too similar to the lottery.

Now, that's not to say you can't build up a respectable catalog over years of investment with slow production, but it's going to be just that - years, if ever. Because, as a new novelist, you can spend one whole year writing a novel trilogy that just doesn't resonate with your market and flops completely, and if that happens, you're back to the drawing board. How many years will it take you to you hit a story that gives you the traction you're looking for? How many years will it take you to become in-tune with your market?

In my opinion, the writing process is the key.

Coming up with the ideas, outlining them, writing them, publishing them, repeating, streamlining and refining the process. In the current climate, production is massively important. So having a better, more streamlined process than the next guy is paramount.

If you want to win, you better do whatever you need to do to be putting out a certain minimum of words per day/per week/per month. 1 novel a month seems to be the production rate of a lot of current best-sellers. I think, at least for me, it's been pretty harsh trying to accept the reality of "If I don't put out at least something like 3000w/day every day, consistently, my chances of success are nil."

So, my opinion on the quality vs quantity thing is this: For the level of success I think most of us are striving for, there absolutely is a words per day minimum you must meet while hitting a certain level of quality that you're constantly trying to raise. Once you find success, that production number can be adjusted wildly, but in the trenches, it's mandatory.

That means, at least in my case, if I can only push out 300-600 quality words an hour, I need to be working 10-12 hours a day, every day, until I can improve my process. On top of brainstorming new story ideas, outlining them, reading in my genre, publishing/formatting/editing, etc.

Not going to lie, I haven't been doing all that this month, but coming to terms with what's really required to make it is the first step.

So it's not quality or quantity, it's quantity and quality. I'll stop rambling now. GL all.

 

[Hicks]

To me when I hear that someone is achieving a large word count I don't equate that to low quality but to winning against one of the biggest foes there is; procrastination.
Good for them.
Well done.
How do you do it?