8000 characters?

seun · Jul 20, 2009

This is probably going to make me look stupid but I can live with that.

I've been looking at a particular agent's site; she requests an extract and/or synopsis of no more than 8000 characters (not words) and an autobio of no more than 5000 characters.

Am I missing something? I'm used to agents dealing with words, not characters. To me, the full stop I just typed is a character. The apostrophe I typed a few seconds ago is a character.

Am I an idiot or is this usual?

scarletpeaches · Jul 20, 2009

I have never, ever heard of this before.

seun · Jul 20, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
I have never, ever heard of this before.

Good. Glad to know I'm not (the only) thicky

geardrops · Jul 20, 2009

seun said:
I've been looking at a particular agent's site; she requests an extract and/or synopsis of no more than 8000 characters (not words) and an autobio of no more than 5000 characters.

Am I missing something? I'm used to agents dealing with words, not characters. To me, the full stop I just typed is a character. The apostrophe I typed a few seconds ago is a character.

My guess is file size restrictions. "Words" in computer-speak means a different thing than in writing, and limiting characters has a more precise file size limit.

But no I've never heard of this before either. Also possible: vast typos.

seun · Jul 20, 2009

I suppose my choice is either send a sample of 8000 words and risk going against what she requests or emailing and asking for clarification.

Or just looking for a different agent.

dpaterso · Jul 20, 2009

If there's some kind of online submission process available then it's possible the input windows are restricted to that number of characters. Of course, rough rule of thumb, divide by 6 to get the approximate number of words.

-Derek

seun · Jul 20, 2009

dpaterso said:
If there's some kind of online submission process available then it's possible the input windows are restricted to that number of characters. Of course, rough rule of thumb, divide by 6 to get the approximate number of words.

-Derek

Hmm. That works out about 1,300 words (I think. Maths was never my strong point). Not the biggest extract I could send but better than nothing. Thanks.

Red-Green · Jul 20, 2009

Welcome to a post-Twitter reality. Use your punctuation wisely.

katiemac · Jul 20, 2009

Word will count characters for you. Under the Tools tab, click on Word Count. The box that pops up will also give you your characters (with spaces) and characters (without spaces). Use the number the counts spaces. An 8000-character synopsis and 5,000-character author bio seems like plenty of space to me, based on the document I just tested. (96 lines - two pages - just under 5,000 characters. My resume and cover letter - not for writing purposes, obviously.)

seun · Jul 20, 2009

Thanks, Katie. I've got my sample sorted now.

katiemac · Jul 20, 2009

seun said:
Thanks, Katie. I've got my sample sorted now.

Theoretically, it sounds like it should even out to the conventional first five pages. Is that how your sample worked out?

seun · Jul 20, 2009

5 and a half. :hooray:

Matera the Mad · Jul 20, 2009

It's a more sensible way to measure a digital manuscript because it bypasses all formatting. Times is more compact (less pages per word count) than Courier (and both are hideous for screen reading), but no matter what font you use, a character is a character.

8000 characters?

seun

Horror Man

scarletpeaches

seun

Horror Man

geardrops

Good thing I like my day job

seun

Horror Man

dpaterso

Also in our Discord and IRC chat channels

seun

Horror Man

Red-Green

KoalaKoalaKoala!

katiemac

Five by Five

seun

Horror Man

katiemac

Five by Five

seun

Horror Man

Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint