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Old 03-25-2012, 12:19 PM   #87
pwalker8
Grand Sorcerer
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Posts: 7,196
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA
Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2
I think that when we talk abundance and good books, then we need to break things down a bit. I tend to break authors into three different groups.

Group one is the great writers, the ones with that special spark, the natural story tellers, the authors who write books that people read, can't put it down and then read it over and over again. There will never be an abundance in this group, since it's a pretty small group of authors. I don't know if there are more than a handful at any one time in a specific genre [I would also say that there are some writers who start in this group and fall back down to the good category after a time for various reasons]. These are the best sellers, the J.K. Rowlings of the world.

The next group are the good writers, those writers who produce quality work, yet lack that special something that separates the great from the good. The majority of writers who make a living at writing fall in the group. Yes, there is an abundance here. For the average reader, there isn't a big difference between name writers in a specific genre. They tend to have a pretty good backlist built up, and there is a known quality about their books, but you aren't going to wait in line to buy their latest.

The last group is the hacks. This is the 90% who fill the slush piles of publishers everywhere and threaten to overwhelm the internet with free ebooks. They may have the talent to be good, but not the discipline, or they may simply not have the talent for writing a good story.

Ultimately, I do think that some filtering mechanism will come into play in the ebook world. Most people don't have the time or desire to wade through masses of dreck to find good books. They want someone else to do that and tell them "hey, try this out, this is a good book". I also think that good ebooks will always sale. What price they will sale at is a different question, but I do think that people are willing to pay for quality.
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