This brushes on one of my pet peeves regarding best selling authors. Once the first several books from an author do well, the quality of the work tends to take a dive. It seems to me, as a reader, that the works stop being edited, and books are marketed on the author's reputation. Jordan being a prime example of this.
I should say this: There are many writers I've known who would be happy to be edited who simply aren't as they sell wildly well. From a business standpoint, this makes sense -- editorial revisions cost time, which is money, and the writer is clearly not in need of the type of editing that will cause their books to be successful, because they demonstrably already are. It's not always -- and perhaps it would be fair to say not usually -- the writers deciding this (there are always one or two).
Requiring shorter works of new authors, but not established ones, sounds like the industry shooting itself in the foot. New authors won't have the word space to set up their worlds, while some others wander aimlessly in the 800 pages/book they are expected to produce. Who knows? Maybe this will lead to the shorter works having a better reputation.
I think shorter works already have a much better reputation, fwiw. Where sales and reputation are not the same, and can't be treated as if they are. If you mean they'll become much more popular? That's harder to say.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-09-10 03:19 pm (UTC)I should say this: There are many writers I've known who would be happy to be edited who simply aren't as they sell wildly well. From a business standpoint, this makes sense -- editorial revisions cost time, which is money, and the writer is clearly not in need of the type of editing that will cause their books to be successful, because they demonstrably already are. It's not always -- and perhaps it would be fair to say not usually -- the writers deciding this (there are always one or two).
Requiring shorter works of new authors, but not established ones, sounds like the industry shooting itself in the foot. New authors won't have the word space to set up their worlds, while some others wander aimlessly in the 800 pages/book they are expected to produce. Who knows? Maybe this will lead to the shorter works having a better reputation.
I think shorter works already have a much better reputation, fwiw. Where sales and reputation are not the same, and can't be treated as if they are. If you mean they'll become much more popular? That's harder to say.