Quote:
Originally Posted by pidgeon92
I would like to offer up another hypothesis as to what is depleting authors' income streams:
• too many authors
• too many books
I don't have ten authors that I like. I don't have a hundred. I have hundreds. I can't buy everybody's books, and even if I did I wouldn't have enough time in my life to read them all before I die.
The market is over saturated with reading material.
If there were fewer authors, and fewer books available, those authors would likely be able to make a decent living just by writing. Now that hundreds of thousands of people in this country fancy themselves an author, the book pool just keeps growing; but the pile of discretionary income people have to purchase those books isn't getting any bigger.
|
I think the same arguements were made in the 1800's when the Penny Dreadfuls were started, and again for the 10 cent pulps. Yet again and louder when mass market paperbacks were introduced.
I agree there is a lot of drek being published, (One person's drek is another person's treasure perhaps) but I admire in most cases the fact that people are out there trying.
Still I find it an oxymoron that too many good books are being published. How can there be too many good books even if I can never read them all?
I know that new authors cut into the income of existing authors,
just as today's existing authors cut into the income of other authors when they published their first successful book. Same with any new store, manufacturer, or service provider.
I too have hundreds of authors I enjoy. I actually have a list of 769 which I still add to every week or so as a post at MR or browsing the available list at the library reminds me of a forgotten (by me) author, or one that sounds interesting.
Of my top 100 authors, at least 30% are dead dammit, so I feel the need to add to the list, although I may not have to, but I actually feel the pheromones when I discover a previously unread book by a favorite author or a new author I enjoy.
Keep em coming I say.
helen