Writing books is not really a good idea • Hacker News Board

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#281

Post by gnulinux » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #254

Unlike movies/TV shows, books tend to 'age' relatively slowly. Many books that were written 30 years ago are still immensely enjoyable today. Not only that, but there are a literal ton of books out there that have been read by hundreds of thousands of people and reviewed extensively. I have found my personal enjoyment of a book to be loosely correlated with the goodreads / B&N scores. This gives me at least some sign…

When I read books, I enjoy it a lot more when I read a "known great" book. It's easier to just pick up a Dostoyevksy, Kafka, Saramago, or Murakami or whatever. Chances are I'm gonna like it, or it'll be entertaining enough.

When I try to explore my own likes, it ends up being frustrating because it takes a lot of trial and error. Consequently, I have no insensitive to read books that are recently published. It makes a lot more sense to wait for people to read books for me and tell me what are the great ones every decade. Meh, it works for me. Yes, I end up reading mostly 19th and 20th century stuff, but it feels sufficient.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#282

Post by trutannus » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #254

Unlike movies/TV shows, books tend to 'age' relatively slowly. Many books that were written 30 years ago are still immensely enjoyable today. Not only that, but there are a literal ton of books out there that have been read by hundreds of thousands of people and reviewed extensively. I have found my personal enjoyment of a book to be loosely correlated with the goodreads / B&N scores. This gives me at least some sign…

> Many books that were written 30 years ago are still immensely enjoyable today

I'd argue that there's a large amount of books that don't age out of their value. There's a lot of good material out there written over a hundred years ago that's more enjoyable that the average modern book. Even books which are tightly coupled to their time period are all still relevant and valuable today.

A funny example, I was reading an author yesterday who discussed a social issue at a local university, and quoted a professor who shares the exact name of a well known professor today who comments on similar issues.

Most of what I read is well over 30 years old, if not older. And very much of it still reflects the world today.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#283

Post by Aerroon » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #266

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #92

Some things at work here: 1. Leisure reading is at an all time low and declining [1]. I think reading books will go the way of live theater and classical music performances. It won't go away, but instead of a common, "every-man/woman" type of outing, it will be more niche/special occasion. I.e. whereas tons of people used to read often for pleasure in the early part of the 20th century, it is heading more towards a "…

I don't think it's going to turn into a "special occasion" activity. Rather, I think you're going to have a smaller and smaller number of voracious readers, but those readers will continue to consume books at a pretty steady pace.

And for those readers it's about consistency. Looking at the Chinese translated web novels: the stories don't even have to be great, but they have enjoyable characters and there's an enormous amount of content.

People read machine translated stories! Sometimes you can't even tell what's going on based on those translations, but people still read them.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#284

Post by ellegriffin » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #212

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #47

It would be interesting to have a timeseries plot of this sort of information. Did it used to be easier to make a living as an author? Presumably there was some point at which the ease of making a living as an author peaked. This article suggests that time is in the past, but how far in the past? Has the absolute number of people who can make it as an author decreased, or just the relative fraction of the human popul…

> Did it used to be easier to make a living as an author? One of the dominant subjective experiences of living today is the sensation that any possible amazing kind of life is right there and it is only up to us to reach out to pluck it. You go on Instagram and see people living blissful lives of travel in gorgeous locales while talking about how affordable it is. That random dude who wrote a series of posts on some…

I love this. Thank you for sharing!

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#285

Post by ellegriffin » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #203

ghaff wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no benefits, including insurance. That $100K for a fairly to very successful author starts to look a lot like a pretty middling $60K or so income in an office job.

You two make excellent points. Although the author seems greedy for wanting a 100k salary, that 100k is going to feel closer to 50k for reasons outside of their control.

I don't think I'm greedy for trying to see if a 100k salary would be possible. I've made that as a writer and editor throughout my career, why not hope for it as a novelist? (or at least try for it!). It might not turn out that way in the end, but better to reach high than low!

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#286

Post by Aerroon » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

FalconSensei wrote: post #267

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_(literature) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens > His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication.[4][5] Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense.[6] The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate hi…

Weekly instalments worked at that time and, while it would still work today to some degree, I see a lot of change in direction to binge-ing shows and books. With that being said, in Japan web-novels are quite common among teenagers - which later on might get a publishing deal to get a print version. BUT, the authors are not professionals and write as a hobby, and making money with their stories happens when they get…

It works in China, but there the authors get paid by word count. And yes, it does lead to exactly the types of problems you can imagine. But there are so many of these stories that some end up being very engaging.

Also, sites like Royalroad and Scribblehub have a fair few authors who make a significant amount of money through Patreon and the like.

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#287

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

ellegriffin wrote: post #192

yoru-sulfur wrote: post #183

The writer of this article seems to be unaware of existing communities of exactly what they are taking about. They mentioned Jemisin's patreon as if she's invented the idea or is the only one who's had success doing it, which is simply not true. Go to https://royalroad.com , view top rated stories, click on basically anything and you'll see patreon links of authors making thousands of dollars per month/chapter.

Yes, I totally understand that there are authors earning money from their AO3, royal road accounts. But, very few are making a living doing it. Jemisin was an exception. Of the fiction writers that currently have a Patreon account: "only 25 earn more than $1,000/month, only six earn more than $2,000/month, and only one earns more than the $5,000/month (and she’s already a bestselling author)." I hope that there are m…

[deleted]

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#288

Post by ellegriffin » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

Vvector wrote: post #169

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #47

It would be interesting to have a timeseries plot of this sort of information. Did it used to be easier to make a living as an author? Presumably there was some point at which the ease of making a living as an author peaked. This article suggests that time is in the past, but how far in the past? Has the absolute number of people who can make it as an author decreased, or just the relative fraction of the human popul…

> I do also think that the expectation/standard of a $100k/year salary is a bit high. Agreed. Most writers do it because they love writing, not because they expect $100k/year. The money comes after the success. I wish her luck

I would call it more of a hope than an expectation. Really what I'm trying to figure out is if it's possible to monetize a niche audience (with fiction content) and make a living from it. I guess we'll find out... And thanks for the luck!

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#289

Post by annexrichmond » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

> Even on the high end, there were only 11 books that sold more than 500,000 copies—which is paltry when you consider that the 10 best-performing Netflix films saw more than 68 million views.

This is a pretty unhelpful comparison as I'm not aware of any major read as much as you want book subscription service that pays dividends to the author. What's the value in purchasing a book versus merely "viewing" a movie?

Re: Writing books is not really a good idea

#290

Post by NoOneNew » Mon, May 10, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

I have one big issue with the book industry... many actually... but related to the article, all this whining is self imposed.

Literary books are marketed far heavier than genre. This is the equivalent to arthouse films vs what actually makes money as a movie/show.

Let's take one similar plot. A chemistry teacher is diagnosed with cancer, cant get treated and eventually dies. Literary and arthouse will do a discovery piece on how this person copes with death and cries with their family, then character dies. Genre... the dude builds a meth empire and everything the arthouse did, the genre adds in. Let's be serious about which was really going to be successful and why.

Entertainment is about escaping boring. You fail that, you fail in general. Most book lists are boring people with boring problems doing boring things.

The book industry did this to themselves by shitting on the genre writers. The publisher that does a marketing campaign, "to hell with boring literary books" and pushes mysteries, scifi, cozys, fantasy and others, they'll open up to the demographic that's not "regular readers". Thats about 70% of a population is an untapped market. Most people who dont read on a normal basis have been trained by school and the book media that fun books are "wrong". I have zero sympathy for the book industry in this regard and I'm an avid reader. I've converted more non-readers than any guilt tripping article regarding this problem.