This week, I was part of a conversation about bookish things. During the chat one participant made a comment about writers putting books out once a year, or more, and how it's not necessarily a good thing. Readers, she said, need time to digest the material. Authors to create.

As a writer who has had five books published in the last two years, I have an opinion on this (as you may have guessed).
In an ideal world we'd all take all the time we need to write our books, but ultimately we're part of an industry and we have to have workable business models

We're also working in a VERY competitive industry and to build a 'brand' the key to have a pretty much constant author presence on the shelves.
This is less important for established writers - but starting out it's pretty vital.

The average book lifespan on a supermarket shelf (unless you are already established or a huge break out hit) is around 4-6 weeks. Then new stock comes in, old stock goes out. This is simply how it works and supermarkets are HUGE sellers.

Also these days readers are, it's reported, less likely to have author loyalty. They will browse the supermarket shelves, spot an eye-catching cover and choose that book. (At 2 for £7, it's a bargain) - so the more you are on the shelves, the more likely you are to bag readers...

That's the business side of it. From an author point of view - yes it can be extremely pressurised to produce that amount of content in a relatively short time frame. It's not a sustainable life-long model (although a book a year is very doable, in my experience)

Every author is different. Some can write really quickly - and write really well, really quickly.
Some need more time to produce their work.
Some books are good, some are bad.
But let me very clear:
THE TIME TAKEN TO WRITE A BOOK DOES NOT NECESSARILY CORRELATE TO ITS QUALITY

I'm a writer who, generally, can write quite quickly. I worked as a journalist for 17 years and that builds up the ability to produce words fast.
Do I think that makes me a better or worse writer than anyone else?
Absolutely not.

I consistently try to make each book better than the last. I will not submit a book that I don't think works. I will edit a book TO DEATH to get it just right.
I would hope my readers would agree there's no dip in quality because of the fast turnaround.

I don't know a single writer who throws books out without regard to their quality - whether it take them three months or three years to write.
We are all just doing our best. All of the time.

Thank you for coming to Ted Talk.