The announcement of the fifth book in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games world has elicited some strong emotions online. While some fans cheered, others began to wonder if Collins is "milking" her franchise. After all, she started with the trilogy, then wrote a prequel, and now there is another prequel? The horror! No matter that her franchise seems to be doing so well that the movie deal for Sunrise on the Reaping was announced at the same time as the book. Some online commentators felt that Collins must be doing something wrong to squeeze more cash from her fans.
The exact connotations of "milking" probably vary from person to person. For instance, some might see the word as meaning "take advantage of" while other see it as "bleeding dry" or maybe merely "cashing in on." It is worth looking at the spectrum of possible connotations here. When is an author simply trying to "cash in on" their work and make more money from a successful series? When are they starting to take advantage of avid fans who will buy anything they release? When has it become so bad that their art itself has been bled dry of meaning or merit? Is there a difference? Do readers see "milking" as artistically acceptable or at least monetarily understandable in one sense-- but not in another?
For my part, I often use "milking" in the sense of "cashing in on," particularly if I see an author write a successful series, publish a few books that get little public notice, and then return to the world of the successful series. But I do not mean it in a negative way, but more in a descriptive way. I understand that most authors are not paid well, and I really cannot begrudge them for returning to a series that worked for them. Everyone needs to eat, after all. If I had a bestselling series that paid my bills, I would probably return to it periodically, too. I see nothing wrong with this, especially if fans are still interested and the book quality is good (or at least not awful).
For me to use "milking" in a more pejorative sense, I would have to feel that the quality of the series or franchise was markedly decreasing, but that the author or other creator was still churning out content for the cash. I would say I typically see this more with big companies. It is, after all, easier to churn out tons of low quality content if you have more people to do it for you. Even if an author wanted to keep writing low quality work, the time needed to do it would likely limit just how much they could publish. And their publisher would have to agree that the low quality work was worth publishing--in a monetary sense if not in a literary one--so they might not be successful in the attempt.
I personally do not see Collins as milking her world just yet. Five books in one world is not a lot, especially when the first three were always planned. And while I found The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to be just a little less stellar than the original Hunger Games trilogy, I still thought it was a solid book that did some good worldbuilding and attempted to engage readers in some more philosophical thoughts on the nature of the world/humanity. Sunrise on the Reaping would have to be truly horrible for me to believe that Collins was just writing for the money/taking advantage of fans. And then Collins would have to release a few more terrible books to demonstrate a pattern. Collins likely has enough money, anyway, after a bestselling series and four major film deals, so I would believe this book is just one she wanted to write.
When do you consider an author to be milking their world?
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