2 volumes - submission question

Only query one book at a time. You could say something about the first book's series potential but no more. And please be certain that the first book can stand alone because if your large manuscript has been chopped into two but hasn't then undergone substantial revision, the two resulting halves aren't going to be separate books, and are very unlikely to sell as they are.

At that length I'd definitely send it out as two books so long as they both work really well on their own. But only submit them one at a time.

I usually paste the first chapter single-spaced, but in email/posting format, with an extra line between paragraphs, so it doesn't shrink down to half the original size, and it's not done to shrink the size (any familiar with word/page count can usually guesstimate the length, even without doing a word count) but it's more readable for e-reading.

That said, eighty-nine pages is HUGE for a first chapter. I'm guessing, but most first chapters are in the ten to twenty page range. I've seen agents ask for "the first three chapters, up to fifty pages," which is consistent with chapters at the 10-to-15 page range. You're at, what?, seven to nine times that.

Take a look at your authorial role models by pulling five or ten favorite books in your genre from your shelves (from books that were published in the last 10 years). How many pages are there in the first chapter?

And yes, drop the "volume 1," and just call it Poisoned Reign. The series title (Annals of Karrac) isn't necessary until it's confirmed to be a series, which is later in the process.

Just out of curiosity, you've referred to it as the "Annuals" of Karrac twice. Is that intentional?

I say not to worry too much about chapter length - there are plenty of books out there which don't have chapters and people manage to read them in more than one sitting without any problems at all.

Out of interest, how long is your MS? If you've done a 50/50 split, you're still at 115K, which is nudging the high end of long. The MAXIMUM quoted w/c is for Epic Fantasy: 120K. For other genres you want to try and keep below 100K.

francist44 said:

I could not do a 50/50; it needed to end after the first war. Thus, this volume or book is about 165k words long, with the original at 230+k words. And yes, I will need to add more to the other half and I've already done that ground work and it's going to be an exciting write. I'm not too worried about the size of the new first volume, whereas I've had quite few people people read the 230k version with no complaints.

One fellow read it in a weekend and wanted more! He made my day. Damn, it's so rewarding to have people come back and tell you in great-detail how much they loved your manuscript. One gal read it, then gave it to her 20 year old son to read. A few months later, I got an email stating he love it and that it was the first book she ever saw him read cover to cover! I suppose I'm hooked on writing, huh?

Hopefully chapter one will suffice to keep an agent or publisher reading.

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Well, unfortunately your MS may never get that far. I know there are some agents who have the interns do a first pass on the slush pile auto-rejecting things like wrong genre, illiteracy, or word counts well over the financially viable norm.

Remember, a longer book costs more to edit and typeset etc. It costs more to bind. There are very few books which need to be that long (Justin Cronin, I'm looking at you).

There are plenty of books out there which break the rules, but the more rules you break, the better you need to be. If you are unable/unwilling to query this MS as a "normal" book length, I'd work on getting some impressive credits on your Query.

The other option, which the venerable Old Hack suggested to somebody with this type of problem, would be to keep your MS, but create a stripped version which only keeps in the essential things. If you can get an acceptance on a 110K MS, you are then in a position to say "Well, I've got this longer version ...".

Think of how they abridge novels for audiobooks. They are still good and worth listening to, they still get the story across in a lower word-count.

Last thing - be sure to post your opening for feedback in SYW. Long word-counts are not always due to having a lot of plot, sometimes the writing is too verbose, or sometimes the story starts in entirely the wrong place.

Good luck.

If I were you I'd post the first 1,000 words or so in Share Your Work before you submit it anywhere. It won't cost you anything and you'll be free to ignore all and any advice you get there: but it might be the case that you overwrite, and if that is so then you could cut your work down to a more acceptable length for a novel.

francist44 said:

Well, that was quite encouraging; actually thanks for the honesty. Short of hacking the hell out of it with ruinous results; I just can't see where I could cut 55k words. The only thing that might work without destroying it would be to make it into 4 or more volumes and submit as such. Whereas, volume one could end with a major cliffhanger. Yeah, back to that same taboo again.

What are your thoughts on trying the E-Book route first? Their cost must surely be lower with respect to size. I have not looked in that area at all and know almost nothing about it. Though it does seem perhaps, quite risky.

Whatever, I think I'll try sending off to maybe two agents, if only for the feedback which I will post. Want a laugh, this epic tale started life as a short story.

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My opinion:

The e-book route as in trying e-publishers?

I don't know what the standard w/c criteria are, but you see any which accept MSS that long, they look like a good fit for your work, and they are what you want to do with your book, then go for it, the same as you would with an agent. They still have the cost of editing and typesetting the book though.
Just be sure to thoroughly investigate them first and remember that everybody you sub to is somebody an agent can't. There are a lot of "publishers" out there who started life as an author who couldn't find a home for their novel - their intentions may be good but as Uncle Jim always says, publishing is not an entry level position.

Or do you mean self-publishing as an e-book first?

No. If you want the agent/commercial contract then go for that. Self-publishing is a full time job. Once a book has been self-published, the first rights have been used and you can no longer sell them. Self-publishing "first" is not a pathway to the commercial contract and can potentially be damaging to your book (if, for instance, you didn't have it edited before placing it for sale).

I think that if you want to self-publish, that is the choice you make for your book and needs to be committed to. Do a lot of research first. It's a valuable choice for a writer to have, but I think too many people treat it as a last resort - "my book had a 100% form rejection rate but I worked really hard so I'm going to charge you to read it". They also don't know the audience for their book and or how to reach them which is a necessity if you actually want to sell the thing.



I don't know what feedback you think you are going to get from sending it to two agents. Feedback is desperately rare and you are unlikely to get any unless they read the full MS (sometimes not even then).

As for hacking - you're probably sitting at a little under 600 (double spaced) pages, yes? (I'm estimating by my own MS length). If you can cut 80 words from every page, that's 50K.

I'll repeat OldHack (who knows approximately 85 times more than I do about these things and should be paid attention to) - post the opening in SYW. Adverbs, needless dialogue tags, and redundancies are three common symptoms of over-writing (I'm a great one for tacking "to him/her" on the ends of sentences). Let's check if you've got problems with them.

francist44 said:

Short of hacking the hell out of it with ruinous results; I just can't see where I could cut 55k words.

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Francist, I note that you have a recent thread in SYW: if this thread showcases the opening page for the book you're discussing here, then I urge you to consider a drastic prune. This isn't the place for me to critique your work, but from what I've seen of it, it is overwritten I'm afraid.

francist44 said:

Well, as advised here and because I could for another reason, I split the original manuscript in two. The other reason being, I've decided to add more and make it a 3 volume set instead of one huge and hard to sell book.

Damn, I entered the wrong page count! Chapter 1 has only 30 pages.
Yeah, I suppose it's still little big for some.

As for my average chapter page count, it varies with maybe most in the 25-35 page range. I like to end my chapters upon some type of well-defined conclusion and not simply because the page count is getting high. I would rather write it well enough to compel the reader to complete the chapter than cut it short with a forced half-ass cliff hanger or worse.

Thanks to both of you

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Cliff hangers at the end of chapters are what make me want to turn the page. Cliff hangers at the end of a novel are what make me want to throw the book at the wall and then put it through my shredder. Sometimes.

In the post re: how to present in a query, I have done as follows:

(Title) is a (word count) (genre) with series potential.

hth. GL!

ETA:

Yeah it's an old post but still relevant. Thus this FYI: While scanning the Preditors & Editors site (pred-ed.com) for agents and publishers I came across these guidelines from one publisher. Note the bold text.

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Note the bold text. But am I to guess that you are querying publishers directly? Have you decided to skip the querying agents route? Just curious.

francist44 said:

Yeah it's an old post but still relevant. Thus this FYI: While scanning the Preditors & Editors site (pred-ed.com) for agents and publishers I came across these guidelines from one publisher. Note the bold text.

<snip>
Any details or plans regarding future series development
<snip>
It may be a mistake, but I plan on advising them of volume II and where my proposed volume III is headed.

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The book I'm querying is the first in a potential series. And that's what I say in the query. (The Gear'd Heart is a New Adult Steampunk novel with series potential, complete at 95,000 words.) *Bolding here for emphasis

I don't think a lot of further detail is important at the initial query stage, because you are trying to sell ONE BOOK. If they like what they see, they will ask for details about the "future series".

Don't query publishers until you're finished querying agents. If you find an agent who wants to represent you they won't be able to submit your work to publishers which have already rejected it: and with an agent, you stand a far better chance at getting your work seen by the right person at those publishers.

In other words, if you want to get an agent you're shooting yourself in the foot by querying publishers now.