We have all read an author like this.
Their first books are amazing, fresh, innovative, addictive. They build a legion of fans and spawn a whole thicket of adoring fanfiction writers. This author writes trilogy after series after prequel. In the beginning they’re all great.
Then they write more companion books. Another series. Perhaps edit an anthology. The plots are starting to seem somewhat similar and the author’s flaws are looming out of the prose more and more often.
When they were an up-and-coming author their editors and publishers reined these issues in. Now that they’re established and have rabid fans ready to buy the next installment the publisher seems afraid of messing with a winning formula and lets it all happen. Even after it’s obvious that the books are losing quality with every mass of quantity that rolls out they just keep writing.
You start to wonder why no one tells this author that they have reached the point of enough.
Well, wonder no more. Here for you is an open letter you can cut and paste to send to your chosen prolific author.
“Dear [Favorite Author],
I love that you are such a creative person and full of ideas. But it makes me feel bad that the quality of your writing has started to get panned in reviews lately. Can we agree to take some time off and rest? Work all the kinks out of the next book for a few years instead of cranking out one a year? I’m only thinking about you.”
As a fan I bear some of the responsibility. The publisher might get the idea and stop ordering more from you if I quit buying them. But it’s time to admit that the horse is well and truly dead now. Please stop beating the poor thing and do some signing tours instead. It’s totally OK to rest on your laurels a little. You’ve earned it.
And dear author’s publisher. We need to have a talk about the benefits of honesty over greed. I don’t know how you sleep at night.
Love and kisses, a fan.”
Is there an author you think should receive one of these interventions? Or do you think authors should be allowed to create freely as long as the ideas are flowing? Let me know in the comments.
Books Rock My World 
Let’s see. Top of the mind…James patterson, Nora Roberts, Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Ludlum, Debbie MacComber, Koontz, Stephen King.
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Wow! Each of them? Sadly, I have to agree with the Nora Roberts. One/two books a year is just too many. They’re getting repetitive.
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Great choices!
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I forgot Higgins Clark, VC Andrews, fern micheals
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Can’t forget Danielle Steele
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Charlaine Harris
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Top of the mind…James Patterson, Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Debbie MacComber, Stephen King.
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I have high hopes for Stephen King, now he’s writing with his son. That could inject some freshness into the new ones.
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Sadly, Janet Evanovich. The little companion spin-offs of the Stephanie Plum series just have to go.
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I don’t agree with James Patterson. He has so many different characters/stories to write about that it doesn’t matter if an Alex Cross comes out the same year as a Women’s Murder Club one.
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Patterson is putting out 19 books from Aug 2017 to Sept 2018 that’s a bit much they are mostly written with others.
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Laurell k Hamilton is at the top of my list followed by Christine feehan, Julie Garwood and Sherrilyn Kenyon. As for Nora Roberts I can see the argument but i think she is unstoppable. She has been writing several books a year for as long as I can remember and I view her books as comfort junk food. So I have come to expect a trio or quartet of men or woman who are put on some mission be it caper or save the world from dark magic and lo and behold they all fall in love. Shock, gasp, and awww. Someone threatens to sacrifice themself and everyone lives happily ever after when it turns out the bad guy cannot withstand the powerful force of a group carebear stare. Do I expect anything new? Nope. Sometimes her full length ones are fine. I enjoyed high noon, blue smoke, and few others. Her jd robb series is also a long ongoing series of comfort reading. There is a murder or murders, eve Dallas acts badass, has sex and fights with her man, and butchers well known sayings and proverbs. No harm no foul.
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But honestly I am grateful for all the wonderful books, I think the really memorable stories are the ones that make us protective. I love Anne Rice for example but after memnoch the devil I am not sure what to do with her. That change in style cannot be explained just by needing a break.
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Mary Higgins Clark; Karen Kingsbury… I stopped reading Mary Higgins Clark after I realized all her books were starting to look alike… and I pretty much figured out the killer before he/she was “uncovered” in the book…
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When a trilogy gets into double figures you need to look at yourself and think ‘time to move on?’
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By far–Janet Evanovich. I started reading Stephanie Plum series twelve years ago–I have changed, grown older, hopefully wiser. And there is Stehanie stuck in the same life, same indisciveness, etc. I finally quit reading after book 18– I have Book 19 and bring myself to read it.
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I’m sure it’s hard to break out from a comfortable, proven, money making rut. I don’t blame her.
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Stephen King and Dean Koontz right off the bat. And Laurell K. Hamilton as well. She seriously needs to put Anita Blake to rest for good
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