Good Authors that struggle

[Arthmail]

So, as an aspiring author, i've often considered what it is that marks a successful book from one that is less successful. A recognized author from one less well known. Mostly i think about this so that i can tailor my writing to whatever is currently "hip" and "radical", and then sell myself out as quickly as possible. Morals and principles, ideals and what have you have no place in my world. (which is why i am currently writing a book called: Interview with a Zombie-Vampire. Because both zombies and vampires are red fucking hot right now.)

But in all seriousness, what do you think differentiates authors and works in terms of their success?

When i consider this ussue, two names come instantly to mind. Paul Kearney and R.Scott Bakker. In regards to Kearney, i can't understand.

With Bakker, i think i do, but perhaps others can bring up other points. I think the main thing is this:

"But the paradox, some would say tragedy, of human existence is that we so easily raise our lives about absence. We are bred for it. Men are forever counting their losses, hoarding them. There is meaning to be found in victimization, and no small justification. To be wronged is to be owed, to walk among debtors wherever you go."

The above quote is excellent, and a keen observation of some people. I think the problems lies in that the book is filled with this, at every turn, from every person. Everyone is a philosopher, and everyone is incredibly pesimistic about human nature and the way of the world. Given a few instances of this, it would not be a problem. A book of this changes things. (I also think that having a complete cast of unlikable characters, the "female character" problem, and some of the names also causes him problems, but i think the above is the main problem.) Not that people do not like to be challanged, but rather that endless amounts of this come off as unlikley. Its simply beyond the realm of reason to have so many people be deep thinkers. I personally love the series, but i can recognize some of the problems that it does have.

Also - Khellus is a huge prick.

So, what authors do you think are not getting a fair go of it, and why?

[Cantabile]

The amount of artists in general that are brilliant but unknown is staggering, and why should we really be surprised? Literature, music, and cinema are financial ventures in this day and age for the companies that find and produce talent. The bottom line is money. And for something to sell well it must in the first place be able to appeal to the Average Joe, and I think we can all agree that the Average Joe does not have much interest in complex philosophy, themes, and a deep appreciation for prose, and the craft of characterization of plot. The Average Joe does not read to have his world view scrutinized and flipped upside down. He reads for enjoyment, if he reads at all.

[Brandon Stark]

The amount of artists in general that are brilliant but unknown is staggering, and why should we really be surprised? Literature, music, and cinema are financial ventures in this day and age for the companies that find and produce talent. The bottom line is money. And for something to sell well it must in the first place be able to appeal to the Average Joe, and I think we can all agree that the Average Joe does not have much interest in complex philosophy, themes, and a deep appreciation for prose, and the craft of characterization of plot. The Average Joe does not read to have his world view scrutinized and flipped upside down. He reads for enjoyment, if he reads at all.

Exactly. It's never an uplifting exercise when I think about the lowest common denominator as far as humanity is concerned and how it unwittingly discourages quality art from being created or recognized, but it's the absolute truth. Most people want to spend their leisure time on things which are easily enjoyed.* Density, complexity, and a need for analysis are not qualities which lend themselves to mass appeal. Sure, something like Inception comes along once in a while to (and don't get me wrong, I loved the movie) treads the line close enough to an actual intellectual exercise that it makes fans feel as if they're smarter for having enjoyed it, but even that's a rarity.

*And there's nothing wrong with that. I have my moments, too, but the majority of the things I find engaging enough to bother with are a bit crunchier than average.

[Iskaral Pust]

A lot of art forms are so inherently heterogenous and consumer preferences so subjective that they make for very inefficient markets.

Books are a really good example. It's very hard to describe a book well so that the potential customer can identify new products they would like to buy. The only way to really know if you will like a book is to read it, and that takes a lot of time (unlike listening to a song or watching an episode of a TV show). The next best proxy is to buy a familiar author whose prior works you liked and/or to rely on recommendations from others with their own subjective tastes.

I'm constantly frustrated that I cannot find good books to read. Most of the books I read, including recs from this board, I would rate as 6-7 out of 10. I occasionally find something that's 8-9 out of 10, but not really that often. I think this is true for most people. We read a lot of ok/good books and a few great books. Sometimes the great books are universally regarded as such (which makes it easy for readers), but more often they aren't.

We need a better way to match subjective preferences with potential books. Amazon extrapolates from purchases by other customers, we look for recs from people who enjoyed some of the books we did, but it's not that efficient.

Another problem is the amount of readers compared to the amount of effort required to write a book. I heard a statistic that only 10% of adults read more than 3 books a year, and the % who read more than 10 a years is very small. (can anyone validate those stats?) And homogenous best-sellers make up a huge proportion of total annual book sales: generic stuff with broad appeal from familiar authors, i.e. easy to buy, especially if you're only buying a handful of books each year.

If those readership statistics are accurate, it's difficult to have many successful authors. It requires months of labor to publish a book. How many copies do you have to sell to repay that effort? How many total books are sold, especially if you exclude the handful of generic best-sellers?

If we want more successful authors then we need a better system for bringing potential buyers to new books (and away from familiar authors) and we need to increase readership in general. I think the former is more realistic.

[Liadin]

Another problem is the amount of readers compared to the amount of effort required to write a book. I heard a statistic that only 10% of adults read more than 3 books a year, and the % who read more than 10 a years is very small. (can anyone validate those stats?) And homogenous best-sellers make up a huge proportion of total annual book sales: generic stuff with broad appeal from familiar authors, i.e. easy to buy, especially if you're only buying a handful of books each year.

Here's what I found:

Just one in ten (9%) say they typically read no books in an average year. About one-quarter (23%) read between 1 and 3 books, while one in five (19%) read between 4 and 6 books and 13 percent typically read between 7 and 10 books. And, over one-third (37%) of Americans say they read more then ten books in an average year.

If those readership statistics are accurate, it's difficult to have many successful authors. It requires months years of labor to publish a book. How many copies do you have to sell to repay that effort? How many total books are sold, especially if you exclude the handful of generic best-sellers?

Fixed. The thread is about good authors, after all. :P

And a lot of it is really luck, as far as I can tell. I don't understand why a lot of great authors aren't popular. I don't understand why a lot of the authors that are popular get as much recognition as they do. Even when I enjoy their books. I liked Harry Potter a lot, but have no idea why it became the huge worldwide phenomenon that it did. :dunno:

Edit: carelessness

[fall787]

Natural adjustment is coming. Stories will be free or nearly free. Noone will make money anymore. This will remove authors writing for money (e.g. hacks/potboilers) from the game. Only the writers who write for the love of craft, not money will remain. One good thing the electronic age brought.

[David Selig]

Natural adjustment is coming. Stories will be free or nearly free. Noone will make money anymore. This will remove authors writing for money (e.g. hacks/potboilers) from the game. Only the writers who write for the love of craft, not money will remain. One good thing the electronic age brought.

Yeah, only hacks write for the money, no talented author ever wrote to pay the bills. All they think about is the love of the craft. Oh, wait...:rolleyes:

[MinDonner]

Yeah, and hacks never make bestseller lists.

Sad fact - the bestselling shite pays for the less-popular good stuff. And writing a book is hard work. If it comes to a point where there's no money in it, that reduces the talent pool right down to those who can afford to take the time.

I don't even know what can be done about that.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

On topic: Think about what drives sells and you're left with something like...Hook, Complexity, Relating to Characters, and Twists and Turns. Specifically to Bakker and Kearney, you're talking about two authors that have very complex books, with characters that perhaps don't get as much time as they should or are too out there for the average person, and Hook wise, you don't really got much going for you since the complexity is the hook. Harry Potter on the other side, since it has been brought up...Hook: Boy gets to go to wizard school. Great hook. Complexity: very simple, first few books are straight forward, rises as the series goes along but never really gets hugely complicated. Characters are every men/women or archetypes people respond to. Twists and turns...probably somewhere in the middle, but a couple good ones per novel.

Off topic concerning electronic market: if anything, I see this as the reverse happening. Authors will make more money, agents and especially publishers are going to be the ones in panic mode.

[fall787]

Yeah, and hacks never make bestseller lists.

Sad fact - the bestselling shite pays for the less-popular good stuff. And writing a book is hard work. If it comes to a point where there's no money in it, that reduces the talent pool right down to those who can afford to take the time.

I don't even know what can be done about that.

Model is changing. Just like it's pretty ridiculous to think of paying for music CDs, it will be soon silly to think of paying for stories. Books will still cost money of course. Stories will only cost as much as the reader loved it.

Look up Radiohead - In Rainbows, they nailed it.

Bestsellers shite will not have any reason to pay for less populat good stuff.

Lastly, you are right that there are those who are good, AND need money, AND can't do anything well except write. Sux for them, I guess. But I'd rather have those people poor, than the world contniuing to produce 99% crap stories, as the situation right now.

Everything subjective, as always with me.

[The Evil Hat]

Fall, in your vision nobody will be able to purely write if they are not independently wealthy. Those talented authors that you and others love to read would have their productivity massively decreased - assuming they still found the time/willpower to ever write - by jobs and the like. The key part of your Radiohead example is that they're already well known. If your average band tried that, they wouldn't make a dime.

[Jon Sprunk]

Weird. I still pay for music CDs . . .

[fall787]

Well bands already make no significant money off songs, they make money off concerts.

Maybe authors will evolve in the same way.

Maybe it's somewhat the return of "bard", who doesn't charge a fee... bard gets as much as the audience loved him/her.

Re: fave authors dying out: Plenty of authors wrote excellent books while under financial strain. Arguably, better shit than what they wrote when finally wealthy. So I don't think that's an argument.

[Foreverlad]

So, what authors do you think are not getting a fair go of it, and why?

Despite the signs of appreciation on this board, Daniel Abraham is still grossly under-appreciated for his work. Why? Because he isn't a whore. Long Price Quartet had a Far-East feel to it, but not a single fucking ninja assassin. The story was 4 books long, instead of 40, and skipped out on almost any bit of drama that did not advance the plot (or better detail the characters), reducing the story length by like 237%. Oh, it also showed appreciation for how economics works without once using jargon or an info-dump to explain the process in tedious detail.

Even while working on his Urban Fantasy series, Daniel (aka MLN Hanover) has something to say. There's nothing wrong with novels existing solely for the purpose of entertainment, but its nice to see authors having a message or purpose to their work.

While I'm definitely looking forward to his next epic fantasy series, The Dragon's Path, I do worry it might be a bit more... conventional. We'll see.

[Cantabile]

I don't see the literature world taking that route anytime soon. Printed material is still in incredible demand; just look at the manga market in Japan, where popular manga sell over one hundred million copies and more.

[Grack21]

I always thought Paula Volsky deserved to be way more popular then she is/was. Now I guess she retired/can't get work/writes under an other name/disappeared into space? Last book was 2001.

[The Evil Hat]

Well bands already make no significant money off songs, they make money off concerts.

Maybe authors will evolve in the same way.

Maybe it's somewhat the return of "bard", who doesn't charge a fee... bard gets as much as the audience loved him/her.

Re: fave authors dying out: Plenty of authors wrote excellent books while under financial strain. Arguably, better shit than what they wrote when finally wealthy. So I don't think that's an argument.

Ugh. Enough of this bullshit myth. Unless we're discussing a major band, they're not getting rich off of touring. Most semi obscure bands are touring at a loss. Like with pay-what-you-want downloading, it only works if you've already made it and is certainly not a viable method for an entire industry. Let alone for the book industry, as I've no idea why you'd even pay to go to a signing.

And wasn't a key part of bards that they were put up where they were staying and so got to avoid those pesky living expenses?

And, just for the record, I pay money for CDs. I believe that people deserve money for making work that I enjoy, but I guess I'm just weird like that.

[Arthmail]

Yea, the notion of free books is naive, and simply put, will not work.

I've just helped hijack my own thread. Dammit. Going to bed.

[Kosciuszko]

You know, being able to write for money likely makes you more talented an author than 99% of the people who think they're awesome authors.

I aim that more at the "only those who love writing should be writing" idea more than anything. Because I can assure you I love my Harry/Hagrid slash-fic and I put tons of care into it... but it still sucks.

Now, my Hagrid/Tyrion slash... now that's my gold.

[peterbound]

Despite the signs of appreciation on this board, Daniel Abraham is still grossly under-appreciated for his work. Why? Because he isn't a whore. Long Price Quartet had a Far-East feel to it, but not a single fucking ninja assassin. The story was 4 books long, instead of 40, and skipped out on almost any bit of drama that did not advance the plot (or better detail the characters), reducing the story length by like 237%. Oh, it also showed appreciation for how economics works without once using jargon or an info-dump to explain the process in tedious detail.

Even while working on his Urban Fantasy series, Daniel (aka MLN Hanover) has something to say. There's nothing wrong with novels existing solely for the purpose of entertainment, but its nice to see authors having a message or purpose to their work.

While I'm definitely looking forward to his next epic fantasy series, The Dragon's Path, I do worry it might be a bit more... conventional. We'll see.

I actually asked him about his lack of sales and recognition at a convention 'speed date with an author' session. He would joke about having only 5 people reading his books right now. I did learn though that he did 'cash out' of his contract, which i guess means that he made all his money back from his advance and publishing costs. So he was happy about that. I"m really looking forward to Dragon's Path as well as Leviathan Wakes. Hell, I'll read anything this guy puts to paper.