votermom:
What I see many good authors falling into is this- their early books are tightly edited. Then they become so popular that the the publishers, knowing they will sell millions of copies, become lax about editing.

Absolutely my biggest complaint is editing. Charlaine Harris got so much attention when the Sookie books took off that she’s having to backpedal now and explain away all the inconsistencies in editing and fact checking. Yet, on the flip side, I love the Harry Potter books (specifically #5 & #7) simply because there is so much more to love and seeing the group grow up unsure of the future (much like in real life). I absolutely hated the first 3 HP books (sheer boredom), but I reread them all every year because I love the last 4 so much.

Recently I began to go through my bookshelves and try to rediscover the old keepers. But I’ve found in the 10 years I’ve been reading heavily that my tastes have changed dramatically. I no longer just want the characters to get together and have a HEA-I want some part of the story to compel me to continue..to be on the edge of my seat. I ended up donating almost half of my “keepers” simply because I outgrew them.

I think in a lot of ways the hype over new authors or the latest bestseller can greatly hurt the books. Expectations are so easy to dash. I remember I loved Project Daddy by Kate Perry back in 2006, but when the second book came along…not so much.

When I first discovered the Stephanie Plum series, I was in love. I’d never read a funny mystery in my life, and they took me out of my reality for awhile. But when I started to expect Stephanie to become slightly realistic and pick a man for goober’s sake I was ruined. I don’t buy her books anymore. I just reread 1-6 when I need a laugh.

I didn’t care for Twilight. I hated Bella. I loved New Moon (the scene with the red hair on the the water still creeps me out), and pretty much hated the rest of the series because I had wanted her writing to continue to improve. Meyer had so much publicity telling her everything she wrote was roses, that it didn’t seem like she had many thoughts beyond “let me just complete my contract and rake it in”. I compare Meyer to Patricia Cornwell. Lots of success very quickly, and then Cornwell seemingly goes off the deep end with the Jack the Ripper and her stories are never as well written.

I think the sell out factor bothers me a lot as a reader too. When an author will bargain with readers for a story, suddenly insert every brand name possible it appears like they get a kickback, or changes an already established fact in their created world to suit someone better…its a red flag for me.

Besides the editing, I just want quality original stories. I don’t want a cookie cutter story that could easily be #1 or #20 in the series. Its got to have progress. One thing I’ve noticed is whenever an author subtly or not so subtly changes their style, they say the story arc is changing-they’re gonna go in a new direction. Once in awhile that works, but its rare for me to continue reading that author if I struggle through one of the books.

But I think part of why so many 3rd or 4th books (especially in a series) really start to suck, is it feels rushed. Authors are only human and they have limited time to write and edit, but it seems the pressures get higher and higher and that’s not really very conducive to creative flow IMO.

Also, many publishers start wanting more than one book a year. Some writers can produce like this and still produce good work, but I don’t think I ever could, and I know of many author’s whose work has suffered considerably when their publishers started wanting to produce the work faster than an author could reasonably write one (meaning more than just a rough draft that goes through a couple of passes edit-wise. I swear some later books in a series I think it’s a rough draft that got hastily edited, rather than work that has truly gone through the process it should before reaching a reader.)

Sometimes a book will resonate because it came along at a particular time in life and re-reading bring backs it all back.

Sometimes there’s just something in that particular story which sticks.

I don’t think it has anything to do with whether it is an earlier book or a later book necessarily.

For example, my favourite Mary Balogh book is “Heartless” which is one of her earlier books. I still read and love her books but that one is just the best for me – something about it just “zinged” and I don’t think I can explain it better than that.

I also love Jenny Crusie’s work – my favourite is “Bet Me” even though I have enjoyed all of her other books.

In both cases, it was neither the first nor the most recent of that author’s that I’ve read.

When I first started reading the In Death series, I felt a wonderful excitement that I had found such a cool new series. While I have enjoyed some books in the series better than others, I still look forward to a new installment with that same (if not more – after all, I’ve a fair idea of what I’ll be in for now) excitement.

Oh, I saw Jenny Crusie’s Sizzle in a 3 book anthology (all her work, but I can’t remember the name of the othe 2 novellas) released here in Australia by Harlequin earlier this year.

While I don’t think it’s true of any of the authors I’ve mentioned above, sometimes an author, rather than getting better with time, actually gets worse – it feels like they’re not doing it for love anymore and it’s become a bit of a formula. For those authors their earlier work is better. Others get better with time and others kick ass right from the start.

For me, my favorite book by an author is usually something very personal. With Diana Gabaldon, for example, my favorite is Voyager, because Jamie and Claire are older and are reunited, and that speaks to me. With some authors I don’t really have a favorite — I couldn’t pick my favorite Nora Roberts, although of course there are some of hers I loved more than others. Sometimes it’s just my mood or the point in my life when I read a book that makes it really work for me, or not.

I do expect my favorite writers to keep writing well, and to write what they want to write. Sometimes that means that they go in directions that aren’t as much to my taste as their earlier work, and then maybe I don’t read all their stuff anymore. That’s okay, because if it’s good, there are other readers who will like it, and there are always other authors for me to try. Other times I follow them to a different place and find out that I like it. I love it when that happens.

Obviously something in the first book I read by an author has to catch my attention enough for me to want to read another book by them. There are times when I think it's a very good thing I didn't discover a particular author until mid-career because his/her first published book didn't have that “something” and I would not have read them further and therefore missed out on some of my favorite books. But then there are authors I was lucky enough to discover at the very beginning of their career and, as a reader, it has been fun to follow them through their various ups and downs. Discovering a new-to-me author with a backlist can also be loads of fun. And much easier now with the ability to find/buy books on-line. I still remember snail-mailing used bookstores all over the country back in the day. In some ways I have more sentimental attachments to those hard-to-find books simply because it was such work to get some of them – LOL. And if they didn't live up to my expectations after expending all that time and effort to track them down, the disappointment was greater than if I obtained them easily.

I don't love every new book by my favorite authors, but it also takes more than one bad book for me to kick them off my favorites list.

As a reader, I believe in the sophomore book slump. The first one was polished to within an ounce of its page count and sometimes the second one seems rushed, as if the author had to make a deadline and did so under fear that the second wouldn’t be as well received as the first.

All that to explain why my second is still in the box. In the closet. Taped shut.

Also, I think there are some comparisons of apples to oranges in this post. Let Stephenie Meyer write 173 more books (or even just be in this business for another 22 years) and then see how she’s progressing compared to Nora Roberts. No matter how popular she is, no matter how many millions of copies of her books have sold, she’s still a relative newcomer.

In fact, I think that writers who are as popular as Meyer or Rowling from their debut novel have a much harder time moving on or progressing. There’s a lot of scrutiny there, and a lot of pressure — perhaps even pressure not to “mess with the formula” — because it’s often when writers take chances and write something different that you see a great leap forward in quality.

As a reader, i dont want to be totally disapointed by a book but I don’t expect to like each one successively more than the last one.

Amen. We called it “endless teen angst in a tent”. Lots of griping about “will it ever end?” I kind of think Rowling went off the rails after book 3, when the books suddenly quadrupled in length.

And just on a your-mileage-may-vary note, I loved the tent stuff – it was the highlight of the book for me. Something about it really appealed – I think I don’t think much about what I read, and had always accepted the convention that the hero/heroine on a magical quest would move smoothly from challenge to challenge – and I loved the idea that in ‘real life’ one wouldn’t have a clue how to do that.
They could have sat ineffectually in a tent for another three months, and I’d still have been happy.
(My complaint with that book would be that I found the bits about Dumbledore’s past tedious.)

My mum would agree with you about the series: she – to better communicate with the grandchildren – followed the series to book 4, but gave up on book 5 murmuring that the book needed to be edited. I think, however, that the series wouldn’t have had the same appeal without all the unnecessary detail.

As fot the first book in general, I think most authors get better, often a great deal better – but sometimes the first book, even if technically not as accomplished, has something special about it. So I’ll sit on the fence with azteclady.

I kind of think Rowling went off the rails after book 3, when the books suddenly quadrupled in length.

Ditto. Three’s my favorite. For the movies and the books.

Harry Potter #7 could have been tightened up a lot in the middle -’ all that wandering around camping

Amen. We called it “endless teen angst in a tent”. Lots of griping about “will it ever end?” I kind of think Rowling went off the rails after book 3, when the books suddenly quadrupled in length.

As an author…I hope my books improve as time goes on! Yet, I hope that my world-building and character development are such that readers reading my yet-to-be-published backlist still enjoy them because of the story that’s told.

I much prefer the more recent books by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Linda Howard, Jennifer Crusie, etc.

But some authors have become unreadable (Laurell K. Hamilton).

And some I’m still willing to give a second chance. They were previously on my auto-read or auto-buy list but I found the last one or few to be so appalling and I became hugely disappointed/disgruntled. Christine Feehan’s latest was a case in point. I also didn’t like Loretta Chase’s last (although the new one sounds wonderful) and I didn’t care for Mary Balogh’s either. Lori Foster’s newest was just plain strange. Stephanie Laurens are like reading the same thing over and over. Suzanne Brockmann’s…just don’t much do it for me anymore.

Sometimes, it is because I feel manipulated. Sometimes it’s because I feel they’ve slacked off, and sometimes it’s because I feel that they’ve carried me off in a direction that I have no desire or willingness to go. Time to hit the brakes!

But, after all, it’s my choice to read or not read, correct?

And, if an author doesn’t intrigue me with the first book in the series–it’s unlikely that I will continue with it. Weaker 1st book are expected as the author gets into her stride. But you’d better make sure that it’s strong enough to make me want to glom that second. Georgia Evans “Bloody Good” is a great example for me. As is Naomi Novik and Charlaine Harris. I couldn’t wait to continue!

From an interview with Jaqueline Carey:

“I spent a solid ten years writing without a significant break, working a day job to support myself. It’s discouraging. Not at first, but after a while, rejection wears on you. In the end, it made me a better writer, because I continued to keep pushing myself, but there were definitely times when I thought, “Maybe it’s time to give up, go back to school and get a real career.” In fact, Kushiel’s Dart was my make-it-or-break-it book, because I knew it was by far and away the best thing I’d ever written.”

So although it was Carey’s first published book, it was ten years writing for her to get to that point. Perseverance!

I can only speak from the reader’s side though, and more often than not I find it’s the FIRST book that I love, re-read, and gaze at fondly on my keeper shelf. Examples ahoy:

Devil’s Bride, by Stephanie Laurens (1st Cynster Book)
My Lady Notorious, by Jo Beverly (1st Malloren book)
Candle in the Window, Christina Dodd’s first book published

As for “Not-the-Current-Release is my favorite book of yours,” any writer who takes offense at that needs to lighten up. Going out on a limb here, but just maybe, possibly, perhaps that's not a criticism of the current work, but an acknowledgment that a character or theme or setting in the previous book really struck a chord with that reader, causing it to become their favorite. That counts as a job well done regardless of where it occurred in the backlist.

Amen!

Especially for authors who write in a variety of genres. There are books that impact me as a reader because of what’s happened/happening/about to happen in my life. It says nothing about finding anything lacking in their other works.

As for “Not-the-Current-Release is my favorite book of yours,” any writer who takes offense at that needs to lighten up. Going out on a limb here, but just maybe, possibly, perhaps that’s not a criticism of the current work, but an adknowledgement that a character or theme or setting in the previous book really struck a chord with that reader, causing it to become their favorite. That counts as a job well done regardless of where it occurred in the backlist.