Maximum length of first novel

Mr Mojo Risin' said:

Now, i've heard that the preferred length for a first novel is somewhere closer to 100,000-120,000. I'm wondering if this is going to become a stumbling block when trying to hook an agent/publisher.

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Hi Mojo,

If 100,000 words is preferred, then 200,000 will work against you, yes. Some long first books do get sold (like Terry Goodkind's first book), but I think the book has to be special for that to happen.

I have a WIP that's around 240,000 words long. I asked my agent whether it'd be better to split it into two books, or to try and squeeze it into a single book of around 180-200,000 words. His reply was "two books of 120,000 words or less would be preferable to one large volume, as the production costs for a publisher are much more expensive on one large volume, and in order to cover such a cost the publisher sometimes has to place an unreasonably high retail price on the single volume."

So, there y'go. I hope that helped.

Euan.

Besides, you stand a better chance of hanging out on the book store shelves longer when you have two books. They always reprint the old books when you put out a new one.

Mr Mojo Risin' said:

Hello. I'm currently nearing completion on my first novel, and i'm finding that even after a lot of pruning it's still stubbornly hovering around the 200,000 word mark. I feel that despite its length there's very little that could be considered extraneous.

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This mind-set is probably going to be a bigger problem for you than the sheer length of the thing.

bird

Mr Mojo Risin' said:

I feel that despite its length there's very little that could be considered extraneous. I truly believe that removing or downplaying any of these elements would work against the novel as a whole.

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If your book ever gets into the hands of a professional editor, you may be in for a surprise.

For what it's worth, Euan's experience was very similar to my own.

Word around town is, even Melville couldn't get a whale like that published these days. The 200K attention span went out of style with button shoes. 100K is pushing it for a first timer. 80 to 90K would be more like it.

For all I know, you're the genius of the century, but if you were, you'd find a way to cull one stand alone volume out of that massive manuscript. The exact strategy for doing that would depend on what you've written, but there's always a way.

If it turns into a book and a sequel, so be it. Just make sure Volume 1 can hold its own, or the odds on publication get very long.

ButtonTheCat said:

Besides, you stand a better chance of hanging out on the book store shelves longer when you have two books. They always reprint the old books when you put out a new one.

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They don't, unless your name is Janet Evanovich or Nora Roberts.

Sassenach said:

They don't, unless your name is Janet Evanovich or Nora Roberts.

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That seals it! My nom de plume is going to be: Janet E. Vanovich!

Length

The longer a first novel is, the harder it can be for a writer to find an agent or a publisher. But this doesn't mean it's impossible. It depends on the type of novel, and on the quality of the novel.

In some genres, with some book lines, not even Stephen King could sell a 200,000 word novel. But with the right genre, very long first novels can sell, and 200K is nowhere near a record for a first novel.

But the longer it is, the better is has to be, and when an agent or editor sniffs your manuscript they had better smell money instead of ink.

Hello Jim Morrison,

Wow! That's a lot of words. I think what somebody above me said may be true...that an editor's take on extraneous may surprise you.

I can't think of any examples of a first novel being released in two volumes, but say your novel is great...they will want to publish it. And if it's too big for one volume, but they believe in it...why wouldn't they publish it in two?

Have you tried workshopping the novel...to get somebody else's take on it?

What would 200,000 words boil down to in actual hardcover pages?

As far as first novels, I'm thinking of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which weighed in at about 1100 pages (not that I actually read it, but I did hold it once in a bookstore. Very impressive).

Assuming that most of the 200K words are essential to the story and a good read, breaking the work into two free-standing books will be probably be infinity easier that chopping it down to one book at 120K.

Breaking it will take some work though. Just slicing it down the middle and slapping separate covers on them won't be enough to make each have a well-constructed beginning, middle, and end.

Size isn't everything. It's what you do with it that counts.

Mr. Mojo, my first about-to-be-published novel was over 180,000 words at the end of the third draft. I cut out a character and subplot in the first revision, bringing it down to ~140,000, and then cut 20,000 more words in two subsequent passes by eliminating wordiness.

I didn't think I could do it either. I thought everything that was in the story "needed" to be there. Once I decided I wanted to cut it down to a more manageable size, I found ways to do it. During the final two revisions, the paragraphs did not change meaning -- I just got to the point more swiftly.

Deciding to cut is the first step. Once you do, you'll find places to do it.

The genre your book is in has a lot to do with the acceptable word count. I'll pass on advice an agent gave me, 100,000 words or below for a first novel. The reason, no matter how brilliant it is, a publisher doesn't care. They are not art appreciators for the most part, they are business people. It costs more to publish longer books though the book will sell for the same price as shorter book which cost less to make. Publishing a long book from an unkown author, no matter how wonderful, is a bad business decision in their eyes, and they are probably right. Finish your book, set it aside, and write a shorter one. Once you break into the business, then fish out that book and you and your agent or editor can decide what can be done with it.

Publishing is a business, not an art. Writing, while an art, is the hub of that business and we must learn to work within it. A book may be brilliant, but that doesn't make it sellable...and that's what those on the business side have to consider...it is their job.

Make it two books!

Good A.M. Mr. Mojo!
2 years ago I finished and started querying my first novel. It was 220,000 words. After 20 "well written, but no thank you's", one nice agent penned me a note explaining that her agency felt the length was unsaleable. She suggested that I break it into two books, and since I'd started on a third, to re-write and market them as a trilogy.
After I obliged my ego and had a doozy of a tantrum, I realized that not only was she right, but also I would be better able to tie up some plot lines, reconcile some characters and make the one "so-so" novel into three MUCH BETTER novels. (Honest: 2 much better novels and one very good WIP)
(There was also that bottom line thing...you know...numbers and dollar signs to consider...do I want to sell 200x of one book, or 200x of each of 2 books?)

Now as I finish a detailed polish on book one ( with the help of a wonderful group of people who hang out at AW, by the way) and start the wax and shine on book two, I mentally thank Ms. Handwritten Note, (who is not taking new clients at this time..PFFFFFT!)
The only problem, and you should watchout for this is that:
After pushing my 'oversized' book to 20 different agents I need to change the title to re-submit it. And I loved the old title.
Break your book into two or three 'books' before you begin to submit it, and perhaps you won't have to commit a brutal edit to get it represented. Yes there are a lot of nice big thick books out there. We all love to read them. But if you look at the shelves most of the novels are tiny things that when produced in mass market paperback, will fit in someone's purse or backpack.

Hugs for writing that much! You should be proud of your self!!!

Just a little tangent here about mass market paperbacks. It seems to me only about 25 writers are in this category (or at least the mass market aspect of it). I wonder how many hardcover books eventually get a paperback version (mass market or not). Or are we talking about straight to mass market paperback?

Then, of course, there's trade paperback, which seems to have a little bit of a literary cache, and usually wrap it up somewhere south of 300 pages.

Well, yeah, you can change the title. After the book is bought, while you're chatting with the editor, you can change the title right back.

Unless the editor or the marketing department come up with a title they like Even More.

popmuze said:

As far as first novels, I'm thinking of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which weighed in at about 1100 pages (not that I actually read it, but I did hold it once in a bookstore. Very impressive).

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Infinite Jest is about 500,000 words or so, though it is by no means his first novel (his first, Broom of the System, was five years earlier, and he had a collection of stories before that). However, Donna Tartt's first novel, The Secret History, is about 200,000 words. There are many others. I suspect it is easier in literary fiction to publish longer debuts.

Mr Mojo Risin' said:

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any examples of a writer's first novel released in two volumes? A trilogy I can understand, but two volumes seems awkward to me for some reason.

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Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm were originally one book. However, she did have a good break point in the centre (A really good action scene that also happened to send the main character in an entirely different direction for the second half.) so she didn't need to do *as much* rewriting as some. They're splendid, too.

For my part, I split one long novel into two, tried to force a climax on the first one, and had my critiques invariably tell me it didn't feel like an ending. So I ended up tearing out a whole chunk of work I had previously thought was necessary, and now I have a long single novel again, but not *as* long. I think I can get it to marketable size.

(I also had a book grow to overwhelming proportions when I added in yet one more subplot, then I decided I ahd to cut - and realised that that last subplot was the ONLY subplot I absolutely, couldn't cut at all, because it was the one written after I'd figured out what the book was really about. The earlier ones were my groping around to figure out what it was all really about, and they could go quite easily. I think that the method resulted in a vastly better book, but it's UNpublished, marketed a little but hasn't caught interest, so I may still be wrong.)

IE: There's more than one way to skin a novel, and they all work for someone.

Heck, if you're Susanna Clarke, you can pull out the "But I'm a genius!" card. It doesn't work often - the publisher either has to price the book past the point where most readers are willing to buy (Ie, shoot themselves in the foot, which they won't do), or the publisher has to be so sure it will be a bestseller that they print a huge first run to bring the price down, and promote it at scary-high top levels.


That just doesn't happen to most of us, so it's better to try and split the book, or cut it.

I know of three fantasy writers who sold debut novels of around 200,000 words. This is rare, though. All three novels were really extraordinary (and all three writers have become very successful).

Once you're established with a book or two, length is less of an issue. But it's still a concern. Some fantasy/SF publishers have begun to release longer books by established writers in two or three volumes.

I think that if you're querying with a novel longer than 150,000 words--even in the fantasy market, which generally is tolerant of greater lengths--you're going to get rejections based on your word count alone. So if you can trim it down, or split it in two, it's certainly in your interest to do so.

Cutting can be very hard--believe me, I know; I write long, and I've been asked to cut every single one of my books. I always think I can't do it, and I always find a way--and for the most part, I think the books benefit. One thing that's been very helpful to me is to ask my beta readers to suggest places they feel could be cut or tightened--they always see things I don't.

- Victoria

Actually, I read about 3/4 of Broom of the System, put it down and never had the desire to pick it up again. He obviously went on to much more exciting stuff after that.