What’s worse? Discovering a new author with only one or two books out, or discovering an author with an extensive backlist?
Discovering a new author and falling in love with their prose can be both a bonus and a burden.
What if you have only just discovered an author who has released a whole backlist? An entire 25 book series and you accidentally read the 23rd or something. Do you go back and read the rest of the series?
Some people would say yes without hesitation.
When I discovered David Gemmell and Anne McCaffrey, they were both still releasing books (it was the 90s). It was hard to catch up on someone who has been publishing pretty consistently since the 70s and 80s. Back then, of course, ebooks weren’t really a thing, and since I was a kid, I had no income, so I had to rely on the fickle library system in an attempt to read every book.
This is also before Goodreads so I’m pretty sure I missed some of their catalogue, too.
Another thing to consider is that I’m a book blogger, and I can’t really take time out of reading my current TBR pile to read a whole back catalogue from the 80s.
I mean, I literally could. There is nothing stopping me but myself. However, my platform is not revisiting old out of print adult fantasy books, but more modern YA, so I feel like it’s not something I can really dedicate my valuable time to.
Besides, reading the entire back catalogue is taking time away from reading other exciting new books.
On the other hand, when you find a debut author and love the ever-loving shit out of their book, say, like Sara Barnard, or Danielle Binks and Tobias Madden being my latest, and they only have one or two books out at the time and they’re still in print and relatively easy to acquire – well then, the problem is that they ONLY have one or two books out, and you want to spend MORE time with them by reading their books, and you literally can’t because books can take years to write, edit, and publish, and while you can read one in a day, and that’s just not feasible on the author, really.
What’s worse? Discovering a new author with only one or two books out, or discovering an author with a decent backlist? Let me know in the comments below!
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About Nemo
A lover of kittens and all things sparkly, Nemo has a degree in English Literature and specialises in reviewing contemporary, paranormal, mystery/thriller, historical, sci-fi and fantasy Young Adult fiction. She is especially drawn to novels about princesses, strong female friendships, magical powers, and assassins.
