Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 2

James D. Macdonald said:

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The Apocalypse Door

Preorder now!

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How many people catch the Peter and Simon name game?

I spent the afternoon researching Jennifer Pelland's work, reading a couple of her articles. Then I ordered her book.

euclid said:

I spent the afternoon researching Jennifer Pelland's work, reading a couple of her articles. Then I ordered her book.

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You are my new favorite person

euclid said:

I spent the afternoon researching Jennifer Pelland's work, reading a couple of her articles. Then I ordered her book.

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Suck up!

smsarber said:

Suck up!

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Yanno, you could do worse than to buy Jen's book yourself....

Meanwhile, I've posted something pretty extensive elsewhere, that I think I'll import into this thread:

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Why you can't sell a very-long work to a print publisher as a first novel:


The price per unit goes down as the print run goes up. The cost per unit goes up as the page count goes up.

Publishers know, from long experience, how many copies of a first novel from an unknown will sell in their genre, with their distribution, with their capacity for marketing and promotion. Some novels will sell more, some less, but there is an average number, and the individual publishers know what it is for them.

Let us say that Publisher X knows that the average first novel from an unknown sells 10,000 copies. That means that they must print 15,000 copies. That'll be the print run.

Publishers also know what the maximum amount the reading public will pay for any novel. Above a certain price point, not even a new and well-reviewed novel from a favorite author will sell. Let us say that that cover price is $30.00.

One other thing that the publishers know is what discount the bookstores demand. Let us say that the bookstores demand a 50% discount.

I have chosen all these numbers purely to make the math easier. But there are real numbers, and the publishers know them all.

Print run: Fixed number.
Price point: Fixed number.
Discount: Fixed number.
Page count: Variable.

What is the only variable? Page count.

Publishers also know how much money each book must earn to pay their fixed expenses. The rent. The lights. The editors' salaries. The book catalogs. The marketing staff.

They know how much money the particular book must earn to pay for itself: the author's advance, the cover art, the printing, the warehousing, the shipping.

All of these numbers, too, are fixed numbers.

There is a certain amount of profit per title that the publisher wants to make. This may be more of a pious hope, but it, too, is a real number. And the publisher knows what that number is for them.

As page count rises, cost rises. At some point, cost will rise above the profitability number. At that point, you will not sell your first novel to that publisher.

What is that magic page count? This will vary publisher-to-publisher. But it is generally held that the number is well below 300,000 words.

What to do about this, if you have a work that absolutely must be 300,000 words?

1) Write and publish a number of shorter works, to build a fan base, so that your expected sales go up, bringing cost per unit down, and bringing total cost into line with the expected profit target. This includes writing and selling other novels of a more typical length for the market.

2) Seek alternative publication, e.g. e-pubs, where the cost-per-unit is not based on the bill from the printer's plant, the number of physical volumes that can fit in a crate, and the number of crates that can fit on truck.

To agents for a moment. The best agent in the world can't sell an unpublishable manuscript. More to the point, the best agent in the world won't even try to sell an unpublishable manuscript. The best agent in the world became the best agent by only showing up at the publisher's office when he or she had a publishable manuscript in hand. For the reasons set forth above, 300,000 words from an unknown author is unpublishable. End of story.

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Notes: The Lord of the Rings has been mentioned. Note that Tolkien was not a first-time unknown author presenting his first novel.

Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was a debut book. It followed nearly a decade of award-winning short works that built a fan base, and it sold to a large publisher that had the marketing resources to sell enough copies that a print run long enough to bring the cover price into line with buyer expectations was possible.

Both Tolkien and Clarke also fall under the Genius Exemption: The closer you are to the edge of the envelope, the closer to genius you must be.

I can hear you object: But MY BOOK will be DIFFERENT! And I am a genius!

No, your book is not different. And if you are, in fact, a genius, prove it: Prove it with award-winning and best selling works.

Uncle Jim wrote, a story that fights you every inch of the way, does not mean that you're on the wrong track

ROTFLMAO because I've got one in the hopper right now that started off great. but which is now fighting me tooth and nail it seems. One of my main characters simply doesn't seem to want too much of his real story told and he definitely doesn't want to be the hero of this book even though he knows damned well what's going to happen if he doesn't do something. Instead, he's running, trying to escape and I have to keep sending the terrorists after him and thinking up new ways to keep him inside the area he's in.

Meanwhile, I've got another main character who's desperately in need of his help, a major character who could really use his help, and a villain who's so diabolical that without the help of the main character he's going to win (or at least be able to kill an awful lot of people).

Bleghhh!

allenparker said:

How many people catch the Peter and Simon name game?

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More than that... how many people catch The Stations of the Cross? There is a ton of little jokes and games and Catholic fun.

James D. Macdonald said:

Yanno, you could do worse than to buy Jen's book yourself....

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I will, eventually... it only took me about three months from the time I said I'd order Land of Mist and Snow to actually be able to buy it, lol.

So, if the publisher's calculations limit a book to 300,000 words, does that mean that a short book - say 75,000 words - has a better chance of being profitable (and therefore published)?

Yes, a shorter book has a better chance of being profitable, and therefore publishable.

But be advised that there's also a lower limit. There's a certain income that any book must achieve (rent, utilities, salaries, etc) and therefore a certain cover price. Readers won't pay the necessary minimum price for books that are too short and therefore don't appear to provide value-for-money.

This is why publishers exist. To make those calculations and to deliver books to readers. Squirrelly as publishing can be, it does one thing very, very well. It puts fiction in readers' hands.

As to bookshops closing: High Street is a high-rent district. Bookstores are marginal at best. And ... while the means of delivery is always changing, the ability to tell lies that others want to hear is a rare one. People with rare abilities can always make their way.

Writing is a precarious occupation. What else is new?

That's why I think the hold-in-your-hands book will never become obsolete.

James D. Macdonald said:

More than that... how many people catch The Stations of the Cross? There is a ton of little jokes and games and Catholic fun.

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Me! Me! Oh, Oh, Mr MacDonald! <waves hand wildly in Horshack manner>


I can't wait for someone to actually get one of my inside jokes for the readers in one of my books.

I wanted to add: Ms. Pelland, I meant no disrespect when I called Euclid a "Suck up" for ordering your book. I was engaging in one of my favorite pastimes: teasing Euclid.

This is a fun look at publishing: "On Meeting an Agent"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkxdALqPkYM

JenPelland said:

You are my new favorite person

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I need all the friends I can get!

smsarber said:

I wanted to add: Ms. Pelland, I meant no disrespect when I called Euclid a "Suck up" for ordering your book. I was engaging in one of my favorite pastimes: teasing Euclid.

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Not a problem! But for your penance, you must buy a copy of my book for every adult on your [insert winter solstice holiday of choice] shopping list. DO NOT BUY IT FOR THE KIDDIES. You will get arrested.

JenPelland said:

Not a problem! But for your penance, you must buy a copy of my book for every adult on your [insert winter solstice holiday of choice] shopping list. DO NOT BUY IT FOR THE KIDDIES. You will get arrested.

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Now I'm REALLY interested

JenPelland said:

DO NOT BUY IT FOR THE KIDDIES. You will get arrested.

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How 'Mature Readers' is the book? Merely R rated or "OMFG, how did you get away with that"? I am so intrigued...

Jen, do you think it's time to teach them "The Vomit Song"?

BigWords said:

How 'Mature Readers' is the book? Merely R rated or "OMFG, how did you get away with that"? I am so intrigued...

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Dark and twisted. And did I mention dark? And twisted?

But why trust me? Buy a copy!

Wow, is all I can say. This thread (and the much longer version 1) is like a writing course. Read all 26 pages in about 3-4 hours today, and now I'm worried that I won't make my daily word count for NaNo, but it was totally worth it.

Thanks all for being smart and chatty.

I've read about 15 pages of it, and then lost my place. It was taking a lot longer than this thread did, because most of the posts were longer.

One day I'll get back to it. Probably when I've finished this WIP (mid-december) and edited this one and the previous one, and then sent it off to betas - then I can take a breath and try and get through the original. Because at that point, I'll only be working on a slow piece, so I won't be spending quite so many hours writing.

Finally, a book trailer that actually makes me want to read the book.