Erfworld, The Thread.

[Doran]

I would counter with Terry Pratchett's observation early in his career that journalism taught him the clear link between words on the page and food on the table.

It's appropriate that you bring up GRRM. The reason I'm not buying any of his books any more is because I got too bored waiting for Feast for Crows to come out and lost interest in his work. GRRM isn't my bitch, but nor is he someone I'm giving money to, which he could have been if he'd been a bit better at getting books written.

A work that is plagued with delays and then goes on a hiatus is going to bleed off readers. If the free work exists to promote and sell a more complete product, and the product itself is no longer being produced, that's hitting it both in terms of maintaining/expanding its demand and producing more discrete types of product to sell.

The two factors combine to make a worse whole on both sides.

But why are you guys acting like Rob shouldn't or doesn't know this though? It's not a hard observation to make and presumbly he's got the stats every month. I mean infrequent updates = potentially inferior product = slow/reduction of uptake isn't a hard deduction to make. It's just that he doesn't have a clear solution for it.

The problem isn't with leaving a work if the schedule isn't for you, the problem is hanging around a work complaining about it and offering no positive criticism. It's useless and makes the problem worse.