I read that many prolific authors don't write their books. They write an outline, and have a paid staff of writers fill it in, without credit.
It's a business like those assembly line Kinkade paintings. (I actually have one of them on the wall, and like it.)
In high school, I decided to read all the James Bond novels. After reading about 8 of them, I realized they all had the same plot, and abandoned that project.
Most truly original art and literature doesn’t sell well, or if it does it’s a slow burn where sales very gradually creep up. Often popularity is achieved after the artist’s death.
The way to make money is to find a schtick that works and repeat and market it.
There’s a funny Behind the Bastards podcast episode on Kinkade, who apparently was kind of an asshole IRL.
Indeed. Even before LLMs you could hire a cheap ghostwriter on upwork. Or even better, hire one to write the outline, another to flesh out the outline into a book, and a third to proof it. Get a cover on fiverr and upload. Then rinse and repeat. Fiction, nonfiction, doesn't matter. Whatever sells. Amazon's KDP program had to institute (very modest) upload limits for this reason. People were turning capital into a deluge of slop books -- hundreds per day in some cases. As usual, the real money is in selling courses that "teach" people how to do this technique.
It's a business like those assembly line Kinkade paintings. (I actually have one of them on the wall, and like it.)
In high school, I decided to read all the James Bond novels. After reading about 8 of them, I realized they all had the same plot, and abandoned that project.