By all means, get in on the action. Sidney Sheldon didn’t write well, Danielle Steel doesn’t either, but they have produced. (I understand that Danielle actually dictates to interns with graduate degrees in English whom she employs. William F. Buckley was said to dictate his spy stories to a recorder in the limousine. Somebody else, I forget who, just lets the interns write the text around his basic ideas. ) What’s the secret, I dunno, or I’d get in on the action m’self.
I tried reading Rowling. Really tried. I lasted a dozen pages. I couldn’t get past those seven cliches per page, cliches that not only annoyed, but by the very definition of a cliche, didn’t convey any meaning. What is she talking about, I kept asking? After the first volume I kept going to the bookstores whenever the next tome was published (no, I didn’t stand in line at midnight in freezing weather with the rest of the Hairy fans, and I didn’t make special trips, either!) grabbing a copy from the stack and counting the cliches on the first three pages. Yep, seven per page every time.
I think it goes like this: Wanna be poor? Write literature. Wanna be rich? Write a dystopian future with vampires and/or zombies. Or better yet, zompires. Make your heroine a 16-year old girl. Add lots of cliches, about seven per page and you'll sell a bajillion copies. Guarantee two sequels and Ridley Scott's production company will buy the motion picture rights for a cool million (and you'll be able to get in on that action two by contributing a couple of lines to the screenplay).
It's that easy!