How are publishers feeling about shorter novels?

Anne Lyle · Sep 14, 2011

Thanks, Angela! It is lovely, isn't it?

I'll put a reminder in my diary to alert you when it comes out. Anyone who's interested can also sign up to the monthly newsletter at my website.

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ScottB · Sep 15, 2011

Very helpful responses, everyone, thanks. Summary: Stick to established wordcount gates unless you're headed into the Wild West of ebookland.

Deleted member 42 · Sep 16, 2011

ScottB said:
Very helpful responses, everyone, thanks. Summary: Stick to established wordcount gates unless you're headed into the Wild West of ebookland.

I really think that's smart.

From a printed book production standpoint, there are issues with setting the text to fit the number of signatures, and, with packing the books in boxes in the right number, using standard box sizes.

(No, really. I'm serious!)

jaksen · Sep 17, 2011

I have lots of skinny novels on my bookshelves. Many were best-sellers.

They reside right next to the mega-chubby books, also many of which were best-sellers.

Anne Lyle · Sep 17, 2011

jaksen said:
I have lots of skinny novels on my bookshelves. Many were best-sellers.

What genre? When were they published? Were they debut novels or by established authors?

Nowadays, debut novelists can't expect the leeway that's been given to the likes of Stephen King, to publish at whatever length he damned well wants because it's guaranteed to sell. Yes, the occasional "black swan" gets away with it, but for every one of those successes, a thousand good-but-too-short/long books fail to find a home.

areteus · Sep 18, 2011

A lot of my smaller novels were originally printed in the 60s and 70s, many of them as reprints of stories in magazines. Consider most of the early Michael Moorcock stuff - they were actually anthologies of short stories and novellas stuck together in order to make a single story.

Nonny · Sep 18, 2011

Anne Lyle said:
What genre? When were they published? Were they debut novels or by established authors?

That's the thing I'd ask. Some current bestselling authors got their start back when slim novels where not only accepted but the standard. And long-term authors can get away with a lot more because they're proven to sell as they are. Why mess with something that obviously works and people are going to buy? It's like how people will point to Nora Roberts and say "But she head-hops!" Sure she does. That's the way it was done in the 80s when she got published. It's not done that way anymore, but who is going to argue with La Nora?

ios · Sep 18, 2011

Old Hack said:
I'd treat everything Dean Wesley Smith writes with a bucketful of salt. He's very opinionated and not always terribly well-informed.

I think the context of the DW Smith quote was in relation to someone self-publishing. I don't think he would advocate submitting something of an inappropriate length to a commercial publisher.

Jodi

ios · Sep 18, 2011

ScottB said:
Great point. Shorter may be the future of ebooks, but not necessarily print.

I actually did think of writing the sequel and fitting them together as Part One and Part Two. It might work. Thanks for the input.

But would it read as a complete novel? Or would it read as two novels? Check and see if you see anything like that on the physical bookshelves currently. If so, look closely at how that author did it for the best success.

Jodi

areteus · Sep 19, 2011

The Atrocity Archive by Charles Stross does this. It is two stories, one being the sequel of the other.

Though this is no guarantee that a publisher would accept this from an author...

Dave Hardy · Sep 23, 2011

ScottB said:
Very helpful responses, everyone, thanks. Summary: Stick to established wordcount gates unless you're headed into the Wild West of ebookland.

I am so glad I found this thread. I've written a 55k & a 60k novel. I was starting to think of them as my white elephants. But I subbed the 55k to an e-publisher & got a positive response. I'm lightin' a shuck for the e-Territories!

pangalactic · Sep 23, 2011

This from Neil Gaiman's blog;

Anansi Boys is a hair under 100,000 words and Neverwhere is a few thousand words over 100,000. American Gods when originally handed in was about 200,000 words (and still is, if you get the "Author's preferred text edition" in the UK and was cut to somewhere a bit under 180,000 words. Stardust was 50,000 words. Coraline was 30,000 words. (I think that 60,000 words is probably a good minimum word count to aim for when you write an adult novel, 40,000 for a book for younger readers. But publishers go more for whether they like something than what the word count is.)

Bolding mine. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Of course, if your name happens to be Neil Gaiman there's probably a lot more leeway with these things. But I think it's interesting to hear his take on the issue, anyway.

ScottB · Sep 26, 2011

Thanks for the Gaiman quote. From what I've heard, you can definitely get away with a lower wordcount in YA, and I'm guessing Coraline and Stardust were sort of counted that way even though they have appeal to adult readerships. Of course the name recognition changes everything, but it's revealing that most of his work is more around the 100K mark.

Quick update on the original post: my WIP is quite mysterious in tone, starting out, and I thought I was maintaining that tone by not including much background throughout the novel. However, I had an epiphany a couple days ago that it may just end up bewildering readers. A mysterious beginning is great, but I think I need to flesh out the history as I go along, giving more and more context to help the reader understand this world. I identified some ways I can do that without being annoying, so I should end up with a substantially higher wordcount when I'm done.

Thanks for all the comments, it really helped!

pangalactic · Sep 26, 2011

Stardust is very much not YA. There is the point, though, that it was originally published as 4 illustrated novellas in comic-book format, which obviously affects the length of it (what with comics tending to run to 22 pages, though I can't remember off the top of my head how long each of the four issues were and I'm too lazy to run upstairs to check). But yes, Coraline is kids' book, and therefore obviously much shorter than an average-length 'adult' book.

How are publishers feeling about shorter novels?

Anne Lyle

Fantastic historian

ScottB

Deleted member 42

jaksen

Caped Codder

Anne Lyle

Fantastic historian

areteus

Nonny

Serve no master but your ambition

ios

Weirdo.

ios

Weirdo.

areteus

Dave Hardy

Don't let your deal go down,

pangalactic

Gargling blasters

ScottB

pangalactic

Gargling blasters