[pwalker8]

No not a motercycle, I'm talking about the productive cycles of authors.

October is normally one of the prime months for new books, but this coming October is the first October in quite a few years when none of my A-List authors has a new book coming out. I have 4 books on pre-order, but all are what I tend to think of a B-List authors. I define A-list authors as authors who I will stay up late at night reading and whose books immediate get read while B-list authors are authors that I like, but whom I find it easy to put down and whose books are put into the queue to be read.

J.K. Rowlings was an example of an A-List author (there is a reason that her last several Harry Potter books was released on a Friday night). Jim Butcher is another (though I can't say that all his books were A-list). This year, most of my A-list authors are either in slowing down stage of their career or just finished a series and are taking some time before the next set of books.

In general, I've found that most top of the line authors tend to write one or two books a year. Rick Riordan is normally a two book per year guy, but he finished off the Magnus Chase series last fall and hasn't started a new one yet (the Trials of Apollo is currently his Spring series). Jonathan Stroud is a fall author, but he just finished up his Lockwood and Co series last year.

In general, most authors who are successful and stay in the business a while seem to go through a cycle. When they first get published, they start pumping out books like clock work for one or two decades, then they start to slow down. Either the genre passes them by, or they move to being the name author with a lesser known co-author, or the dreaded writer's block catches them. Some get around this by moving between genres to stay fresh.

Jim Butcher seems to be in that area where he has slowed down a lot. He hasn't come out with a new novel in 3+ years, yet for 2000 to 2012 he came out with a new book every year. David Weber started in 1990 and has kept up a steady stream of books by a combination of moving between series and working with various co-authors. So far he hasn't shown any real sign of slowing down.

The flip side of this is Patrick Rothfus who was 4 years between his first major book and his second and we are now in year 7 of waiting for book 3 with no end in sight.

My biggest issue is that it's been a while since I've run across a new A-list author. Patrick Rothfuss came out with Name of the Wind in 2007. Larry Correia also came out with Monster Hunter International in 2007. I've run across authors that I've liked since then, but not any new authors where I just couldn't put down the book. Fortunately, I still have a good dozen or so A-list writers who are still active, though some are in that slow down period of their career.

When and who was the last time people here ran across a new A-list author?