The only reason I don't like Locke's strategy is that it very much relies on hitting it big. He made a name selling a million copies. That's great! But he also sold them at 99 cents, meaning he made $350k doing it, and to do it, he had many, many books in the top 100. The odds of pulling that off are incredibly, stupidly low, and more importantly, it's almost impossible to replicate consistently (I did a quick perusal of his books, and I saw most in the 1ks, other than one novel at 198...but he's got a lot of books so I might be missing a fewÂ
). If he wasn't hitting top 100, if he wasn't selling a hundred thousand a month...he'd be making peanuts. It's an all or nothing gamble based on having a lot of books, rapidly released, with each creating an almost exponential rise in sales.
That said, much of what he says to do I do agree with. And what he says to do might not actually mimic what he did himself (I haven't read his book, only studied his strategies and what he's publicly told others). He advocates being professional, frowns on spamming, focuses on entertaining the reader...I see no problem here. Would I call him "inspirational?" For me, not really, but for others who perhaps write in his genre, or need a nice, solid example to follow when it comes to building an author brand, I could see people feeling that way.
As for the anger...I kinda get it. A millionaire sold a million books. Hooray? As for the art comments, though, give me a break. He wants to entertain, he writes books to entertain, and for the most part, readers say he is indeed entertaining. He's clarified this over and over again, that he doesn't think he writes crap, it's just that he doesn't see it as any form of high art because he's clearly trying to write some easy, fun escapist literature. I just don't buy this "we must write or die from our muse" nonsense. It's just a way to romanticize what is honestly a *lot* of hard work. There's plenty of days I drag my butt before my laptop at the library, wishing I could do *anything* else but that. Times where I stare at the screen and just can't wait for the battery low indicator to come on so I can go home. Doesn't reflect one iota on my passion for the craft, my desire to entertain my readers, or the overall quality of my work.
