Forum: Author Hangout

That was why I made the posting in the first place, Amazon have inadvertently made mass-plagiarism on their site more difficult.

The point is that the plagiarists copy large numbers of stories and only being able to post three a day does complicate their business somewhat.
Is three a day not also the limit here on SOL?

When you look at popular writers, very few have more than twenty books.

The British writer Niall Teasdale has far more, Amazon UK lists 68 titles, Amazon US lists 81 titles.
I haven't tried to find out what causes the difference.

Few single novels, some of them really stand alone, the others intended as first book of a new series.
Many series (2 to 14 books), some listed below:
Thaumatology 14 books (12 novels + 2 story collections),
Fox Meridian 10 novels
Aneka Jansen 7 novels,
Death's Handmaiden 6 novels,
Princeps Venator 3 novels,
Misfits 2 novels,
Tatsu Yamada 2 novels (a third is awaiting edits and then proofing, according to the author)

BTW, I've read – except Fox Meridian – these series and a few stand alone novels.
I've looked into (not even read all of the free sample) the Unobtainium, Fallen and Ultrahuman series and was not interested.
With Fox Meridian and Sondra Blake I'm uncertain after reading the free sample, maybe I'll buy the first book of both series.

HM.

There are a number of popular authors who have more than 20, yes, especially later in their careers, but note that Pixy said "average".

Having a large backlist is key to making money as a published (dead tree) author, but there aren't a lot of authors who write more than one book per year. Certainly there are some, plus there are some authors who have a backlog of completed books when they first get published, but generally speaking one per year is about the norm.

Self-published authors are often more prolific for the simple reason that they don't need to go through as many steps between completing the first draft and publishing. I haven't read Niall Teasdale so I can't comment on how raw their text may be. Regardless, just because you can name one author with more than 20 books doesn't mean Pixy is wrong about the average. I have no idea if 20 is correct, but it feels about right as an average, depending on how you define "successful," of course.

Keep in mind that the single richest author in the world, J K Rowling, has written a total of 9 novels* and 1 play.

* Note that typically in Britain children's books are not considered to be novels by the publishing industry, or at least they weren't when Rowling started writing. I'm using the word in a general sense here of a fiction book, not in a literary or publishing sense.

I haven't read Niall Teasdale so I can't comment on how raw their text may be.

That's easy to fix. Just go to Amazon select the first book of one of his series and click on "Send Free Sample".
The free samples are usually long enough to judge the authors writing.
You need to create an account and download the free Kindle app to your PC. No need for a Kindle device. I've none and read the books on my laptop.
BTW, I started with the "Death's Handmaiden" series.

One warning, the MCs of all books I've read are female, and if there is a 'significant other' it's a female.

HM.

To be honest, I don't see the 3 books a day limit being an obstruction. When you look at popular writers, very few have more than twenty books.

While being dead certainly puts a crimp on the ability to write further. Isaac Asimov has quite the catalogue of books/textbooks that has written and/or edited with his name attached to it.

IIRC, I recall some of the biographies placed the count somewhere in excess of 500 books. Not (short) stories, books.