How prolific should you be?

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Following on from Jim's post yesterday on attacking the self-publishing game, I started thinking about how the indie e-book phenomenon is affecting reader expectations as to the number of books a writer should be producing. In May a New York Times article explored how many bestselling writers now feel that one book a year is simply not enough. 


Publishers are placing increasing pressure on authors to accelerate production, often asking for additional material such as novellas and short stories to supplement the e-books being released. In a market where entertainment is being churned out at a faster and faster rate, I can't help worry that the push for constant new material in the e-book market comes at the expense of quality - but what writer can afford not to be prolific when the market demands it?


There aren't many of us who can match James Patterson in terms of output (I believe he released 12 titles last year with 13 due this year!) but with the demands on authors increasing all the time, I wonder how many of us feel compelled to produce more simply out of fear? 


In the indie market, clearly an author has to balance consistent output with quality in order to build readership but, as an author whose first novel was published, I don't exactly have a huge drawer load of old manuscripts I can put out there - and there are limits to how fast I can write new material to the level  that I feel is publication worthy. It seems rather a daunting challenge - balancing the need to produce with the need to keep quality standards high. 


So what do you think? Are some of these prolific authors sacrificing quality for quantity? Is your publisher pushing for you to produce more than one book a year? If you are considering (or in the process of attempting) the indie route, how are you approaching this issue? What is your target output - and how do you plan on achieving it?