HUGE Problem...Help me, Agents!

CrastersBabies said:

I've never met an avid read that said, "Hmm, nawww, it's too many pages."

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There's one book I've felt that way about... Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Not exactly an epic fantasy, but it's a debut novel that clocks in at about 800 pages. I bought it because I'd heard so many great things about it and it was on sale in paperback at Target... but even in paperback the thing is a mammoth. I'd had a hard time reading more than a few pages of it.

"It's not you, it's me, baby. I'm just not ready for that kind of a commitment."

However I do think the problem is more the size than the actual length -- if it was the size of a GRRM trade paperback or if I had an ebook version of it I would have probably already finished the thing. Same with Android Karenina.

(Before you get your hopes up about Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell being a debut novel at over 300,000 words, it's very British and was published back in 2004. Pretty sure your market's different.)

It's great to see how many of you love long books. I suspected as much, since otherwise, GRRM couldn't have become a best-selling author.

For my part, I stick to my 450 page limit rule, b/c I simply don't have the energy to invest in something longer. I work in a technical field, and spend my days and w-e's reading research papers and technical books. When I switch to literature, it has to catch me fast. That rarely ever happens. (Btw, I did try to read the first GRRM book. It starts too slow for me.) So while I appreciate everyone's concern for my missing out on great books (I'll check out your rec's), the fact is I am difficult to entertain. I've been known to walk out of blockbuster movies b/c I found them boring.

(The only long books I've read in recent times are the Harry Potter ones. But by the time the monster volumes arrived - from the 4th one on - I was already heavily invested in the characters so I bought the bricks. Then read them and wondered if the editor was asleep at the helm. Still loved the books, but they'd've been lots better with proper trimming.)

Studies found in self-published works that readers like stories to be very long. More sales for more words.

If a novel is too short <55k words or less, I feel it's a ripoff. Why spend $8 reading 150-200 pages when you can get that same price for 300 or more pages of a much more engrossing story? Also, I read 100-150 pages for grad school almost every day.


But I'm glad you've cut it down.

JubbyO said:

Studies found in self-published works that readers like stories to be very long. More sales for more words.

If a novel is too short <55k words or less, I feel it's a ripoff. Why spend $8 reading 150-200 pages when you can get that same price for 300 or more pages of a much more engrossing story? Also, I read 100-150 pages for grad school almost every day.

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When people are surveyed they might say they prefer more words for their money. But this doesn't usually filter through to sales.

People don't buy books by weight: they buy them because they find the individual title interesting or compelling.

If you have two books to choose from and one is huge but doesn't sound very interesting, while the other is slighter but really captures your attention, you're going to take the second book, not the first.

If it were true that readers always want longer books, trade publishers would be publishing much longer books.

I'm late to this thread, but I wanted to chime in and say that recently Janet Reid posted a blog about word count. According to her: "150K at a minimum. You can't do it right in less."

I did a quick google search for other agents' input and found much older posts which put the number a little lower, but still.. If 1 finds it acceptable, I bet more will too.

Julz said:

I'm late to this thread, but I wanted to chime in and say that recently Janet Reid posted a blog about word count. According to her: "150K at a minimum. You can't do it right in less."

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It's always good to quote enough to give a full context:

Sweeping, epic fantasy: 150K at a minimum. You can't do it right in less.

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Other genres require different word-counts. Those of you who are reading along and wondering what extent your book should run to should read the blog post for yourselves.

Colleen Lindsay wrote a blog post about this some time back which is often quoted, but I can't find it now. Others might do better.

Unimportant said:

Sure, but 140K words is going to work out to about 560 pages. At 165K, it would've been more like 660 pages. Publishers are often unwilling to consider books that long because they cost so much more to print and bind, and they take up too much room per copy on the shelf of bookstores.

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I bolded the part that seems to get lost in these arguments.

"I don't mind long books, and doubt many readers do" is ultimately immaterial: if you aren't self-pubbing or e-pubbing, many publishing houses do.

Doesn't mean they never take longer works, but it DOES mean there is a hurdle that gets higher and higher with pagecount as you leave their guideline ranges.

To leapfrog onto Quicklime's post - another thing that is often forgotten is TRANSLATION. We would like to sell your books in many other markets. What you may not realize is, a book that is 650+ pages in the US -- which is quite long and difficult to manage already -- may suddenly turn to 900+ pages when translated into, for example, German.

Which means that the German edition will likely have to be broken up into two books so that the binding will actually be able to contain the text without breaking. . . or, you know, they just won't buy it.

You may say, so what... but Germany is one of the largest markets outside the US, and actually can be quite a good source of revenue for whomever holds the rights. They'd likely balk at a book this big, and the way they go will often be an indicator of the way the rest of the world will go.