The Prolific Master
The New York Times published a story this weekend about how authors, in this the digital age, now find themselves writing not one book every couple of years (or in the case of our namby pamby literary MFA professor cousins, one book every five to ten years), but because of increased consumer demand, two to four or more. I've been writing about this exact topic for close to two years now and I've spouted off in numerous interviews about how this is indeed a new golden age for writers and readers.
Here's the article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/in-e-reader-age-of-writers-cramp-a-book-a-year-is-slacking.html?_r=1&ref=ebookreaders
Wow, it's really insightful.
I've said before also that writers should maintain a variety of publishing options. Major deals, indie deals and self-publishing ventures. I currently am engaged in all three. I've hit a few home runs over the past year with The Innocent and The Remains most notably, but so long as writers produce good books, there's no reason they can't begin to make a very good living eventually.
How can you too take advantage of this the new Golden Age of writing?
By placing your ass in the chair and fingers to the keys.
All it takes to write a book of sixty thousand words in six weeks time is five pages per day. And that's with the weekends off. I can write five pages in about two to three hours which leaves me with plenty of time to work on a second or even a third book. James Patterson has been doing this for years and so has Stephen King.
We're professional writers.
Writing novels is what we do for a living, and there's no reason we shouldn't be putting in as much time as a lawyer does at his or her firm.
Remember, it's all a matter of ass to the chair, and fingers to the keys.
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