出版与作家生涯2010nytimes.com编辑精选
詹姆斯·帕特森公司：一位销量超过金和格里沙姆的作家
James Patterson Inc: A look at the author who outsells King & Grisham
导读
这篇文章介绍詹姆斯·帕特森作为畅销书作家的商业模式和写作风格，他销量超过斯蒂芬·金和约翰·格里森姆。评论讨论了畅销与写作质量的区别、故事优先于句子、kill your darlings，以及出版工业化模式对写作行业的影响。值得写作者读，因为它揭示了写作与营销的关系，以及如何以故事为核心进行创作。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
畅销不等于最佳文笔：写作能力和销售能力是两回事，好作家未必畅销，畅销书未必文笔最佳。
- 02
故事优先于句子：不要为了炫耀文字技巧而妨碍叙事，读者更关心故事。
- 03
删掉你自认为精彩的段落（kill your darlings）：如果某个段落只是为了展示文笔，就删掉它。
- 04
写作是长期事业：可以大器晚成，持续写作和高产比早期成名更重要。
HN 评论精选
畅销靠营销和故事，而非华丽文笔；写作要务实、删繁就简。
评论者借Kiyosaki的故事说明畅销不等于最佳写作：一位优秀作家销售不佳，Kiyosaki建议她学文案，并指着书封上的'best selling'说'没说best writing'，直言'你写作优秀，我写作很差但擅长销售'。帕特森的细分市场营销策略聚焦书卖得最好的城市；他务实地说'我现在对句子不太感兴趣，更感兴趣的是故事'；以及'kill your darlings'——他不相信炫耀，认为炫耀会妨碍好故事，遇到自认为特别精彩的段落就删掉。评论者最后认为帕特森是迎合大众的营销天才。
10ren查看英文原文
Robert Kiyosaki (rich dad poor dad) has a story where he's interviewed about his book by journalist who's an excellent writer, and having trouble breaking in. He advises her to take a copy writing course, to help her sell her work. She objects that she became took journalism so she wouldn't have to be a saleswoman. He points to his book jacket's blurb which says "best selling". "It doesn't say best writing," he explains. "You are an excellent writer; I'm terrible at writing, but good at selling." "It's not fair," she sulks. niche marketing: Instead of simply going to the biggest book-buying markets, he focused his early tours and advertising efforts on cities where his books were selling best: like a politician aspiring to higher office, he was shoring up his base. pragmatism: I’m less interested in sentences now and more interested in stories. kill your darlings: “I don’t believe in showing off,” Patterson says of his writing. “Showing off can get in the way of a good story.” (Samuel Johnson: Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.) a marketing genius who has cynically maneuvered his way to best-sellerdom by writing remedial novels that pander to the public’s basest instincts. Sounds pretty accurate. If writing is intended to match the human story-processing system, analogously to how image compression attempts to match human visual system, then the popularity of writing (aside from sales due to marketing) is a measure of its match to what an ideal story really is (i.e. how humans perceive stories). In this view, a story is not an end in itself, but an attempt to communicate; in contrast, "literature" has become its own subject. It is solipsistic. Therefore, it is possible that this guy's writing will become studied in the future (as his editor said of Dickens), because it is based on reality outside of itself. Just remember that when you go over the mountain to work in the morning, you’ve got to be singing Yeah, I agree with the article's followup on this, that it's not clear that he loves what he does for its own sake, or because he's successful at it. I think he must deeply enjoy it in some sense, because he has tremendous energy for it. Or perhaps he enjoys it because he gives it energy and meaning? It reminds me of the conflicting advice posted on HN, about "do what you love" vs. "love what you do". The latter is certainly essential, for even in loving what you do, some bits of it you won't love and you need to do them anyway. And, as apes, we enjoy dominant status for its own sake (aka "success"), regardless of how we got there. I think enjoying how we get there does matter; but it doesn't have to be entirely for its own sake. I love these long nyt articles.
担忧出版工业化模式会扼杀独立作者和原创作品。
评论者感到担忧：如果这种模式流行，出版社会雇元作者写大纲，再把实际写作竞标给初级作者，出版社拥有角色和系列版权，系列成功后只需雇初级作者填空。这样对出版社更有利可图，但可能扼杀独立作者。如果最终产品像帕特森的小说，图书行业令人担心；如果JK罗琳能当枪手，哈利波特还会被写出来吗？
Flemlord查看英文原文
I found that horrifying. All I could think of while reading the article was what if this model takes off? Publishing houses put books together by hiring one meta-author to write an outline for a book, then bid out the actual writing to junior authors. The publishing houses would own the rights to the characters, series, and future books. When a particular series takes off, their only expense is hiring junior authors to "fill in the blanks" on future novels. Sounds immensely more profitable for publishing houses for the current model. Why would a publishing house develop individual authors if the new meta model is so much more profitable? As interesting as I found the business model, if the end product is anything like Patterson's novels, I fear for the book industry. Would Harry Potter have been written by a down-on-her-luck JK Rowling if she could have gotten work as a ghost author for a publishing house? I could see this being a good thing, but I like my books and the direction scares me.
大器晚成，坚持写作，高产可以随年龄增长。
评论者指出帕特森29岁出第一本书，直到49岁才成为全职作家，此后平均每年写2部小说，越老越高产。对比有些人永远写不完小说，这些数据很惊人。他问：你今天做什么会在20年后成为新闻？
Adrenalist查看英文原文
Very interesting that he didn't become a full-time author until 20 years after his book was published. I'm always interested in how successful people became that way. Mr. Patterson was born in 1947, published his first book at 29 years old (1976) and didn't become a full time writer until 49 years old (1996). He's been writing an average of 2 novels per year since then (!) and is getting more prolific with age. Considering that some people never get around to "finishing their novel", I find these data points amazing. What are you doing today that will be news worthy 20 years from now?
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