Too Soon Forgotten?

One thing I've noticed about the ebook industry is that it's darned fickle and very dependent on the personalities of the authors and publishers who work within it.  Now, I'm not going into all this business again about how authors and publishers should strive to curb their tongues and present a smiling face to the world, even if they are crying inside, cos that's been discussed a lot.  In fact, it's discussed every time an author makes a huge boo boo on-line, and we all pull up a chair, grab the popcorn and watch the train wreck happen.  Instead I want to bring up something else which I've noticed a lot just recently on author blogs and in author interviews, and that is the fear that many authors have of not being able to write quickly enough, and therefore losing their tenuous hold on their fanbase.

You see, it's not the authors and publishers who are fickle, it's us readers.  There is so much out there for us to choose from, that those of us with a limited book budget have to choose carefully which books to buy.  Therefore it's understandable that if a once-loved author produces a few books which we consider to be below par, then the new releases from that author are no longer going to be autobuys.  Same goes for if an author writes a few books in a genre that a reader likes then switches genre, there's no guarantee that the reader will follow the author into the new genre.  Or there may be many other reasons why a reader should suddenly stop buying books by a particular author.

I can imagine it must be highly frustrating for an author to be constantly second guessing whether the readers will like his or her new book.

One way an author can attempt to keep hold of the fans they currently have is to keep themselves visible, and this is where the main thrust of this post is going.  Authors can blog, Facebook and Twitter all they like, but will it keep their readers satisfied unless they are also producing books at fairly regular intervals?  My original thoughts about this were that it doesn't matter how long authors have between books, if I like their writing, and they are an autobuy author, then I will buy and read their books and they will not be forgotten.  Now that argument holds water for those authors who are on my list of 'must buy' authors.  Of course I won't forget about them because I follow their blogs, look out for new releases and eagerly anticipate their next book.  But what about those authors who are on my secondary authors list? Those authors who may have produced one or two books which I've enjoyed but have never caught my attention as much as my autobuy authors and whose books I will probably buy, but not necessarily as soon as they are released.  Would I forget about them if they took a year to produce their next book?  Quite possibly.  Then again, I would hope that once the new book was released I would remember them again.

That leads me onto my next question: what constitutes a long time between books?  In the paperback romance publishing industry most authors are contracted to produce two books a year.  In the world of ebooks where authors are mostly contracted on a book by book basis, unless they are writing a series, it's entirely up to the author as to how many books they write in a year.  Thus we have some authors who produce a book every 2-3 months, and some who maybe only produce one book every 9-12 months, and others anywhere in between that.  Those authors who write slowly look at the faster writers and think that they are failing somehow because they are not as prolific, and that if only they could write quicker they would get more fans,  more readers and more money.  Not so, in my opinion.  As the old saying goes, it's all about quality not quantity.  Readers know when they're not being given the best from an author, which may happen if an author tries to force him or herself to write faster, and will take their money elsewhere.  Going back to the question at the top of the paragraph, I don't think it matters how long an author has between books as long as what they produce is of a good quality.  These are the books which make reputations (the good sort, anyway) and once an author has a reputation for writing great books then word of mouth is enough for them not to be forgotten.

So where am I going with this long, rambling post.  Round in circles it looks like!  I'd like to end by saying that I may be a fickle reader, but I'm also a relatively loyal one too.  An author would have to mess up big time for me to drop them.  If I'm an example of typical reader, then there are many, many other readers out there just like me who have long enough memories that they are not going to forget an author who may take more than 6 months to produce their next book.  Authors need to stop worrying so much about getting the next book out and more on writing what feels right for them, at whatever pace that may be.

I'm interested in whether you readers out there agree with me.  Do you wish your favourite authors produced more books, or are you happy at the speed at which they produce them?  Do you think this is something that writers should be worrying about?  Are you likely to forget an author who is slow at producing books?