Too many books

Every time I try to cajole my wife into writing a book, because she is the funniest and best writer I know and she absolutely should write a book, she replies the same way: "There are already too many books."

Her argument goes like this: there are so many books in the world, too many for any person to read, and she is just one of the people who might write a book, and every one of those people would add to that pile of too many books. So who would care about one more book bobbing around in this vast ocean of stuff?

And, she adds, even if she has opinions on things and is funny, that doesn't mean what she has to say is worth saying to everyone.

My counter: And? None of that never stopped all of the people who have written books already. And it never stopped people who have opinions or share their thoughts on social media. And people read books, if you squint a little maybe more than ever. And publishers are there to publish books! We just have to give them better stuff to publish. You can give them better stuff to publish.

I was just thinking about all of this when she texted me from the Airbnb she's staying in at the moment.

Now, I can't fault her thoughts on Patterson. But it seems unfair to base a view of publishing on an edge case like him. My conservative estimate is that Patterson puts out around 72% of all the new books released in any given week. He's an industry all of himself. He doesn't even write his own books, he just conjures up half a plot and some basic thoughts and throws them at another writer. He has turned writing into a factory, a piece of arch-capitalism that makes him as annoying and bold as your JD Rockefellers or your Henry Fords.

One reason I started this club was because even though there are a lot of books out there, it's the Pattersons that get all the oxygen. Front list authors get publisher support (although even that's dwindling) while everybody else can just go whistle. It's up to a patchwork of booksellers, librarians, tastemakers and reviewers to try to get some attention on the books that might not be getting the big sell from their publisher. And it's on authors to market themselves and their books for the folks who might buy them.

So maybe there are a lot of books (I won't say too many) but perhaps that makes writing and finding the good ones even more important.

One other housekeeping note before I go: since I over-order supplies a little each month, I have a small stockpile of old picks filling up what I have called the SHIPPING AREA (it's actually a closet.) In order to keep on top of things, I've decided to start offering previous month's books for sale. The stock's very very limited, but it's on discount. So if you want to pick up a copy of May, June or July's books for just $20 each, you can now order them from the website.

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There are just a few days until we announce August’s pick and start sending books to subscribers. If you sign up now, you’ll be among the first to get the new title—and an invite to our monthly author Q&A session.

Bonus: you may not have read this month’s pick, but will still be able to join the Q&A, or watch it after on our video archive.

_{Photo used under CC license by Loz Bycock on Flickr}