Questions Authors Get Asked: “Aren’t Writers in Competition?”
Like most authors I get asked a lot of questions, not just about my stories and characters but also more generally about the writing life.
And some folk out there have noticed that I don’t just talk about my own books and writing on the blog, but also about other writers, as well as doing interviews with fellow authors, book reports on books I’m reading and enjoying, and being a member of communities such as the Tuesday Poets and SpecFicNZ.
So the question I get asked is: “why do you do that, because aren’t authors in competition to sell their writing?”
My answer is always:
Sure, if all readers only liked one kind of story and only ever bought one book, then certainly—authors would be in competition for that one slot. But thankfully, the world is fill of people who love all kinds of different stories and consequently read and also buy many different kinds of books—and no one writer could ever possibly satisfy all the reading needs, of all the readers, all of the time. So it needs a lot of authors writing lots of different kinds of stories, and experimenting and trying the new, as well as bringing fresh voices to the old and loved, to meet that demand.
So in that sense authors are as much in co-operation to generate that diversity as we are in competition, in my humble opinion.
But just to expand on the answer a little, another reason for preferring to work in a spirit of community and mutual support is because one of the reasons I’m a writer is that I love reading and I love story. And of course I do write the kind of stories I love reading—but like all those other readers in the world I don’t like only one kind of book and/or story. I love a wide range of tales, and ways of telling those tales to boot—so I really want and need other authors out there writing more stories for me to enjoy. π
And not to share and celebrate what I take delight in reading—well quite aside from feeling rather mean spirited, would also be to stint the Muses of their rightful due, and that would never do!
(The logos belong to writing communities I am proud to be part of.)
*Pokes head up over edge of blog*
I haven’t been here for… a very long time, it seems. But as a beneficiary of your cooperative techniques, I say “hear hear”. π
Mary–great to see you! (Metaphorically, above the parapet. π )
As for your ‘hear, hear’, you rather embody the community co-operative spirit yourself, my dear–& any other way would seem to be veering just a ittle toward the grinchy, if not the ungenerous of spirit…
π
Life is weird enough – we weird wordy folks should stick together, I say.
Hear, hear!:)
Plus there is always the point that readers read faster than writers write! As much as I love all my favourite authors if they were the only books I read each year I would be missing out on discovering new and different writers each year. So healthy competition and support is all good – plus I have read numerous books on my current authors recommendation! π
“Plus there is always the point that readers read faster than writers write!” — Yes, indeed!
And I know it was a tremendous thrill for me when authors such as Robin Hobb and Juliet Marillier not only read and enjoyed my books but said so on their blogs and websites.