# How do you feel about authors that publish a lot of books? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2013, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112 "2013-01-14T00:05:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/1 "2013-01-14T00:05:37Z")
I was a huge fan of Robert Parker since high school in the 70’s. Always snatched the newest book off the shelves right after it hit paperback. But, any Parker fan knows his books were hit and miss. There were some really good ones and a few clunkers. He had an amazing output. Cranking out over thirty Spenser books. Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall series too. He also wrote a few westerns. 😛 He died a few years ago in front of his typewriter. Robert Lundlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd. Is it better for an author to just write, write and write some more? Or is it better to strive for perfection? Rip up or even discard book ideas that maybe aren’t panning out? Looking back at Parker’s work. Would the great books happen if he hadn’t written the clunkers in between? Spener dipped in the 80’s but got better after Parker wrote a few Jesse Stone books. Spenser seemed fresher in the 90’s. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/2 "2013-01-14T00:09:27Z")
It depends entirely on the author; some _can_ write well and quickly, some _can’t_. ---
**Author:** ![CatherineZeta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@CatherineZeta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatherineZeta)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/3 "2013-01-14T00:50:41Z")
I’ve never read anything by her so I can’t comment on the quality, but I know Danielle Steele publishes something like a book a year (or did, not sure if she still does). I’m assuming she just feels compelled to write. A member of my family is friends with her and she would get letters that were pages and pages long. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/4 "2013-01-14T00:54:43Z")
Being prolific and being of variable quality are not the same thing. For a science fiction example, Asimov was far more prolific than Heinlein (heck, Asimov was more prolific than almost anyone), but Heinlein was considerably more variable: Heinlein’s best books are better than Asimov’s best, but Heinlein’s worst are far worse than Asimov’s worst. And either style can work, depending on the author. I enjoy most of Asimov’s work, who never bothered with a second draft and just churned out as fast as he could type, but I also enjoy all of Tolkien’s work, who was still obsessing over fine details in his earliest works when he died. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/5 "2013-01-14T01:06:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And either style can work, depending on the author. I enjoy most of Asimov’s work, who never bothered with a second draft and just churned out as fast as he could type, but I also enjoy all of Tolkien’s work, who was still obsessing over fine details in his earliest works when he died. I’m pretty sure Asimov always did a second draft - but that was it. Here’s a cite [How to write a lot - CSMonitor.com](http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0317/p18s02-hfgn.html) “My second draft is 90 percent my first draft, because in my first draft I’m just saying what I mean. That enables me to write a lot and to enjoy writing.” ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/6 "2013-01-14T01:34:14Z")
Just to agree with what everyone else has said–it depends. Some authors can produce a novel or more every year for their whole lives and produce good, reliable work in all of them–Isaac Asimov has been mentioned, but also PG Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett. Others produce a lot of work by churning out huge amounts of crap–Piers Anthony springs to mind. Actually, it occurs to me that the defining quality of high-productive authors is reliability. Can anybody come up with a highly-productive author with widely variable output? Some masterpieces and some utter dreck? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/7 "2013-01-14T05:04:44Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > Just to agree with what everyone else has said–it depends. Some authors can produce a novel or more every year for their whole lives and produce good, reliable work in all of them–Isaac Asimov has been mentioned, but also PG Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett. > > Others produce a lot of work by churning out huge amounts of crap–Piers Anthony springs to mind. > > Actually, it occurs to me that the defining quality of high-productive authors is reliability. Can anybody come up with a highly-productive author with widely variable output? Some masterpieces and some utter dreck? There are plenty of authors that pretty much run out of ideas in one or two books, particularly if they are episodic, but keep churning them out because… money, pressure from the publishers and publicists and public, etc. The first name to come to mind is Philip Jose Farmer and his Reverworld series. There’s Jack Chalker and his Wellworld series. There’s whoever that guy was who wrote about the crime-solving cat. I would guess, though I don’t have evidence to back it up, that _most_ authors follow a downward track. Or maybe I should limit that to fiction writers. Biographers, historians and journalists aren’t making up a universe for us to buy into. They’re telling someone else’s story with their own style, which seems not to be so prone to … unevenness, for lack of a better term. ---
**Author:** ![Sevencl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sevencl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevencl)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/8 "2013-01-14T05:06:48Z")
I can’t think of many authors who produce what I’d call a _lot_. Brandon Sanderson is the only one who springs to mind, and his stuff is consistently excellent, but not always what I want him to be working on. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/9 "2013-01-14T05:12:57Z")
I’ve only read a few of Sue Grafton’s books. She has that alphabet series A is for , B is for, she’s all the way through the alphabet now. Has her writing stood up or is it hit and miss? She’s really been cranking out the books. I’ve found Brad Meltzer very hit and miss. There’s a couple of his thrillers that I just couldn’t finish. They were putting me to sleep. Others that Brad wrote are pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![Sevencl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sevencl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevencl)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/10 "2013-01-14T05:27:28Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I’ve only read a few of Sue Grafton’s books. She has that alphabet series A is for , B is for, she’s all the way through the alphabet now. > > Has her writing stood up or is it hit and miss? She’s really been cranking out the books. _twitch_ I suspect not - a charity shop I worked at, I was in charge of the books. I grew to hate this woman and her books because we were donated tons of copies and never sold any. And we never did get a complete collection of the series - never higher than E or F. Until this thread I didn’t know the series went any higher. It seems like people read that far then gave the books away, maybe due to a decline in quality starting around book E? ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/11 "2013-01-14T05:44:47Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > Just to agree with what everyone else has said–it depends. Some authors can produce a novel or more every year for their whole lives and produce good, reliable work in all of them–Isaac Asimov has been mentioned, but also PG Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett. > > … As much as I love PG Wodehouse, I have to say that the Jeeves and Wooster books especially are pretty much minor variations on a theme rather than distinct and original works like Pratchett’s, so I don’t know if that should be taken into account. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/12 "2013-01-14T14:14:31Z")
What do you think of Joyce Carol Oates? Her [bibliography](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Carol_Oates#Bibliography) is staggering, she’s won a ton of awards, and she has three novels coming out this year alone. I’ve only read some of her short stories, and they were pretty good, but I’ve always been a little incredulous that someone can write that quickly, go through editorial review that quickly, and consistently produce high-quality work. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/13 "2013-01-14T14:21:44Z")
I’m the first to mention Stephen King, the king of publishing a lot of books? When he gets it right, he nails it. Unfortunately, not always. I despise Sue Grafton. Whoever told her she could write was demented. But if a writer can get published, I’m fine with it. Nobody can make me buy or read them. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/14 "2013-01-14T14:37:18Z")
Are they trying to write books, or are they trying to write Literature? It makes a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/15 "2013-01-14T14:57:42Z")
> [@CatherineZeta](#): > > I’ve never read anything by her so I can’t comment on the quality, but I know Danielle Steele publishes something like a book a year (or did, not sure if she still does). I’m assuming she just feels compelled to write. A member of my family is friends with her and she would get letters that were pages and pages long. Danielle Steel writes between two and four books a year. From the little old ladies that frequent the library, I’m told they’re mostly the same plot recycled over and over again. > [@Sevencl](#): > > I suspect not - a charity shop I worked at, I was in charge of the books. I grew to hate [Sue Grafton] and her books because we were donated tons of copies and never sold any. And we never did get a complete collection of the series - never higher than E or F. Until this thread I didn’t know the series went any higher. It seems like people read that far then gave the books away, maybe due to a decline in quality starting around book E? The “Alphabet series” really took off around _M Is For Malice_, which came out in the mid 90s. I’m not sure Grafton qualifies for this thread as she’s only written 22 books in the series in the last 30 years (and one collection of short stories). She hardly measures up to King or Koontz or _Danielle Steel’s two to four books a year_. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/16 "2013-01-14T15:28:54Z")
Mystery authors tend to produce a large number of books. Look at Agatha Christi. Almost all of hers were top drawer. John Dickson Carr, on the other hand, had a very much weaker batting average. Tony Hillerman’s books are consistently high quality. I can only think of one or two that really were not high quality. Erle Stanley Gardner were consistent. I suppose you have to be a Perry Mason fan to decide where that consistency falls. Regarding one of the most prolific authors I knew, Louis L’Amour. Westerns aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but he consistently wrote the best of them. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/17 "2013-01-14T17:12:02Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > Mystery authors tend to produce a large number of books. Look at Agatha Christi. Almost all of hers were top drawer. John Dickson Carr, on the other hand, had a very much weaker batting average. Tony Hillerman’s books are consistently high quality. I can only think of one or two that really were not high quality. Erle Stanley Gardner were consistent. I suppose you have to be a Perry Mason fan to decide where that consistency falls. Mystery and romance, more than other genre fiction, rely on formula. Writers can crank out lots because they’re essentially the same, but no one complains because that’s pretty much why they’re buying them. I’ve been discovering that Urban Fantasy is like this, as most of it seems to be a mix of mystery and romance. You’ve got a supernatural protagonist (typically female) working some sort of case, while also in an on-again off-again relationship with some dude (typically a cop or other authority figure). They sort of blur together after a couple. It also appears that publishers want at least one a year for a series, but authors direct-publishing to Amazon are cranking them out faster (with lesser quality). ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/18 "2013-01-14T18:16:56Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > Mystery and romance, more than other genre fiction, rely on formula. Writers can crank out lots because they’re essentially the same, but no one complains because that’s pretty much why they’re buying them. Many romances while written under the same name as author are actually contracted out and have a number of other people writing them. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/19 "2013-01-14T18:38:04Z")
As others have said, it depends on the author. I wouldn’t call Robert B. Parker’s output hit-and-miss throughout his career. The Spenser novels up through _A Catskill Eagle_ were uniformly good; some of them were excellent, and at least two were brilliant. _Eagle_ was published in, I think, 1985, and I think he was emotionally done with Spenser, Susan & Hawk at this point. After that he was doing them from contractual obligations and for the paycheck; I can hardly blame him. Even the books from the latter half of the series are rarely actually bad; they’re just workmanlike. And his non-Spenser stuff – Sunny Randall, Jesse Stone, all the Westerns – was always good. I always suspected that he churned out a Spenser a year to subsidize the others. In a good and just world, someone would have given Piers Anthony the choice between giving up his word processor or his fingers long ago. Valerie Martin doesn’t write enough. Neither does Mary Gaitskill or Ernest Gaines. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112/20 "2013-01-14T19:08:09Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > I’ve been discovering that Urban Fantasy is like this, as most of it seems to be a mix of mystery and romance. You’ve got a supernatural protagonist (typically female) working some sort of case, while also in an on-again off-again relationship with some dude (typically a cop or other authority figure). They sort of blur together after a couple. Ooo, have you checked out [Kat Richardson’s](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=kat+richardson&sprefix=kat+richardson%2Caps%2C215) _Greywalker_ series? I’ve found these really well done, though I haven’t read any other urban fantasy for comparison. Admittedly, part of my enjoyment of the series is the Seattle setting — I live in eastern Washington but have spent enough time in Seattle that I was familiar with many of the locations in the books. And the author did a nice job with several scenes in one book that were set in/around a small town about 25 miles from me, particularly with incorporating that town’s somewhat unique history. OP: I love it when I find an author I like and then discover that he/she is very prolific. I’ve read almost every work of fiction that Asimov ever published that made it into book form; I think I’m only missing a handful of his _Black Widowers_ stories and probably some of his later work that appeared in his magazine. In fact, since I discovered Asimov when I was still pretty young, his writing had a big influence on what I like in a novel, style-wise. I’m a big fan of novel series. Largely, this is because once I find a story I like, I hate it when it ends. So if it can just keep going and going, I’m happy as a clam. Unless, of course, it starts turning into crap. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-that-publish-a-lot-of-books/647112.md?page=2)