An author was bragging earlier today that he’s written and published north of 1M words per year “not just once, but multiple times.”
I smell bullshit.
And I said as much.
Inevitably people crawled into my mentions defending the myth of the ultra-prolific indie author. You know the type—pumping out eight, ten, twelve novels a year. The indie publishing world treats these authors like productivity gods. Write faster, they say. Scale up your output. Pulp Speed™ is possible if you just work hard enough.
Sign up for my productivity course! (Link in bio.)
Here’s what I said that triggered the latest round of pearl-clutching:
The response was predictable. People (mostly non-authors) invoked “pulp speed” and cited million-word-per-year math. They insisted it’s possible if you’re just fast enough. They name-checked writers from the 1930s. They posted Amazon pages from contemporary indies. They accused me of gatekeeping.
Brad R. Torgerson had this to say:
And unlike the LARPers arguing with me, he knows what he’s talking about.
And he’s right.
Sure, the math works on paper, kinda. But it falls apart the moment you account for what actually goes into publishing a novel.
I’m tired of typing this all out every time someone gets defensive about basic pattern recognition, so consider this post the definitive reference to my argument:
If an author consistently publishes seven or more full-length novels (80-100K words each) per year, year after year, that’s a red flag for undisclosed ghostwriters.
This isn’t some random number or conspiracy theory I pulled out of my ass either.
I’ve been approached by “prolific” indie authors under NDA to ghostwrite for them. Other authors have confided privately to me that they’ve ghostwritten for these same individuals and others. I know personally of indie presses where the “prolific” senior co-writers don’t actually write anything.
My skepticism of indie authors publishing more than 5-6 titles a year is earned and valid. And I’ve done the math to back up my “suspicious territory” threshold, as I’ll demonstrate below.
It’s a perfectly reasonable threshold for skepticism. In fact it’s generous. Are there exceptions? Undoubtedly. This isn’t about shaming fast writers or claiming speed is impossible. This is about math, sustainability, and what “publishing a novel” actually requires.
The “pulp speed” argument always starts with the same calculation. A million words per year equals 2,740 words per day, every single day including weekends and holidays. Work a more reasonable 260 days (5-day weeks) and that’s 3,846 words per day.
Sounds doable, right?
Seven novels at 100K words each is 700K words per year. That’s 1,918 words per day, every day. Or 2,692 words per day on a 5-day schedule. Even more achievable.
This is where most people stop thinking. The raw math works. You can type that many words. I’ve done it. Godsbane (134K words) took me five to six weeks. Doors to the Stars (92K words) was less than a month. Death or Glory (114K words) took about five weeks.
Raw math says I could write ten first drafts a year if I never took breaks. But those are first drafts. Not finished novels. And my highest output year so far was 500K+ first draft words in 2024.
Typing ≠ Publishing
For a finished, published novel, you need more than a first draft. You need planning and outlining (even pantsers do some of this). Research, if the story requires it. The first draft itself. Then developmental revision—usually 2-3 passes minimum where you fix plot holes, strengthen character arcs, improve pacing (more for pantsers). Line editing passes to tighten prose. Incorporating feedback from beta readers, editors, or sensitivity readers. Proofreading. More proofreading.
Let’s be conservative and say revision takes 50% as long as the first draft. Many writers will tell you it takes 100-200% as long. But we’ll be generous.
Seven novels at 100K words = 700K published words per year. If revision takes 50% of first-draft time, that’s the equivalent workload of 1.05 million words at first-draft speed. At 3,000 words per day (extremely fast), that’s 350 working days. At 2,000 words per day (King’s old pace), that’s 525 working days.
There are only 365 days in a year. On a 5-day work schedule, that’s 260 working days.
And I’m being extremely generous with that 50% revision estimate. Most professional authors will tell you revision takes at least as long as the first draft, often longer. Double those numbers and the impossibility becomes even more obvious.
I write fast. I’ve proven I can sustain high first-draft output. Even I can’t hit seven published novels per year. My best year so far was three. The bottleneck isn’t typing speed. It’s everything that comes after.
Let’s look at actually fast, productive authors and see what they publish.
Stephen King writes about 2,000 words per day (he’s slowed to around 1,000 words daily as he’s gotten older). He works 3-4 hours per day. He publishes 1-2 books per year. King is famous for his work ethic and has published over 60 novels. He’s not hitting seven books a year.
Brandon Sanderson is famous for productivity. In his 2023 State of the Sanderson, he reported writing 350K words in 11 months on Stormlight 5. His typical annual output is around 300K words, with his peak year hitting roughly 400K. He aims for 3,000 words per day when actively drafting but doesn’t sustain that year-round. He publishes 2-3 books per year on average.
Nora Roberts at her peak published 4 books per year—two as J.D. Robb, one standalone, one part of a trilogy. That’s roughly 400-450K published words annually. She works 6-8 hours per day, Monday through Friday, and explicitly states she writes, revises, and polishes as she goes. She’s not banging out first drafts and calling them done.
These are the top 0.1% of productivity outliers. Writers at the absolute peak of sustainable output. And they’re not consistently hitting seven or more novels per year.
But wait! someone will say. What about the pulp writers? What about Max Brand?
Frederick Faust, writing as Max Brand and 18 other pseudonyms, did hit roughly 1-1.5 million words per year for 30 years. He wrote 10,000-20,000 words per day. He produced an estimated 30 million published words in his career.
He also published rough magazine drafts with essentially zero revision. Editorial standards were minimal. He was paid by the word to fill pages in weekly pulp magazines, sometimes seeing two serials and a short novel published in a single issue under different names.
And it destroyed him. Faust suffered a severe heart attack in 1921 at age 29 and lived with chronic heart disease for the rest of his life. He died at 51—killed by shrapnel while working as a war correspondent in Italy in 1944, but his body had been breaking down for decades.
This isn’t a success story. This is what unsustainable productivity looks like.
And more importantly, modern publishing expectations are nothing like 1930s pulp magazines. Readers expect developmental coherence, character arcs, polished prose. You can’t publish rough first drafts and stay commercially viable.
I’ve written about why ghostwriting without disclosure is fraud because readers deserve to know who actually wrote what they’re buying. When someone consistently publishes seven or more novels per year, it’s reasonable to ask questions about their process.
Common Objections
“But dictation!” Dictation speeds up first draft production. It doesn’t eliminate revision time. You still need developmental passes, line edits, and proofreading. The math still doesn’t work.
“Some people are naturally faster!” Sure. I’m a fast writer. My peak year was 500K+ words of first draft material. That’s not even close to seven published novels, and it wasn’t sustainable—I needed breaks between manuscripts. The people who claim to be faster than Sanderson, King, and Roberts combined are statistical anomalies or they’re lying.
“But [specific author]!” Either they’re not actually publishing seven full-length novels per year when you look at actual word counts, or they’re proving my point about ghostwriters.
“You’re gatekeeping!” Pattern recognition isn’t gatekeeping. Saying “this output level is statistically improbable” is basic critical thinking. I’m not saying it’s impossible for one person, somewhere, to hit these numbers through some combination of genetic lottery, perfect health, zero other responsibilities, and minimal revision needs. I’m saying when you see it consistently, year after year, it warrants skepticism.
“Maybe they don’t need much revision!” The 0.0001% exception doesn’t invalidate the general pattern. And if someone genuinely doesn’t need revision to produce publication-quality work, that’s arguably more remarkable than writing speed—and should be verifiable through their process.
TL;DR
No verified solo author sustains 560k–700k+ published words/year indefinitely with modern quality expectations.
Producing more than 5-6 publication-ready novels per year requires writing 3,500+ words per day, every single day, plus all the revision and editing time, sustained indefinitely.
I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m saying it’s statistically improbable enough to warrant questions. When you see it year after year, consistently, asking about ghostwriters is reasonable.
The math is simple. An impressive million words per year sounds vaguely plausible until you separate typing from publishing. First drafts are not finished novels. Revision is not optional. The pulp era is dead, and trying to resurrect it will break you.
Anyone claiming otherwise is either ignoring the actual work that goes into professional publishing, or they’re not doing that work themselves.
Or they’re using ghostwriters and lying about it.
Discover more from The Annex
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The Annex 