Better Late Than Never

Yikes! I neglected my blog this morning.

I'm fascinated by two opposing ... I'm going to call them truths... in the book industry. One is that (and this comes via a workshop at the ACFW conference) a book generally lasts about 90 days on the shelf of the bookstore. 90 days. Yeesh, it takes me longer than that to WRITE the thing, right?

So obviously it's a challenge to recoup what is cost to make the book during that 90 days. That's one obstacle. But another is that in order to build readership and keep an author's name out there, authors are taking shorter deadlines. Six months. Four months. That's quick! To write, edit, and polish a novel.

But think about the shelf-life problem. If your last book is off the shelf in three months (90 days), then a four month deadline puts your next book on the shelf a mere 30 days later. It probably keeps your name more fresh in the mind of your (hopefully) growing readership.

But does writing under those brief deadlines cause some drooping in the quality of the writing? Are we giving up quality in favor of quantity?

Certainly it can happen. I think the onus falls on the writer to resist commitments that leave him/her unhappy with the end result of the work. Of course, that's easy for a non-contracted author to say. :)

I think it's important as a writer to be aware of your own creation process. Know what you can reasonably do and not do, and to strive to avoid commitments that take you beyond those limitations.

I'll be getting my education here shortly, as I begin sending out proposals of my own for Broken Glass. So I'll have to report back on this topic from the other side of the fence.