There are certain things that I do not think an author should do, ever…
But the most important thing, in my opinion, is to never compromise yourself or your writing.
Lately… I’ve seen more than one author give into to their fans and write something simply because the fans ask for it.
I realize that fans are important. Without fans, you have no readers, and without readers, you are writing for no one but yourself, and you’re not selling books.BUT… and this is a big but… when an author writes something to appease their fans and it’s not up to par… I think this hurts them more than helps them.
Case in point… an author I absolutely love who has written some amazing books, recently released a book to “end” a story that her fans simply wanted more of.
The first 2 books were phenomenal. Seriously, they were amazing. I along with many many other fans fell in love with these books and these characters.
The male lead was Epic Book Boyfriend material. In fact, he’s in my top 5 Book Boyfriends.
There are spinoffs to the series and those books too are great. I can’t wait for more.
As I’ve said, I am a huge, huge, HUGE fan of this author.
But this 3rd book seemed rushed, was not really relevant, was basically a book about a very unlikable character, and had WAY too many other things with other characters going on.
It was simply not up to the author’s previous standards.
In this particular instance, I personally think a short novella OR even an extra chapter or 2 or simply an Epilogue would have better served the author and would have been more beneficial to the author and the fans.
Not only did the author compromise her talent and her writing, but as a fan, I was very disappointed with the quality of the book.
And again I’m not knocking the author because I absolutely love her.
The point of this rambling is that we all write. We want to please our fans. Our fans are why we write and who buys our books, but giving the fans what they want is not always in the best interest of the author.
And if the fans are loyal, they will understand that sometimes, you can’t have exactly what you want and we the authors need to be true to ourselves.
I mean don’t you want a quality piece of work, even if it’s short, over an overtly long, piece of crap?!?!