Popeyesays said:
You have an Epic Fantasy on your hands. Told through generations, it might be necessary to think of them as linked novellas and break the project into volumes containing the most closely related parts.
A 200,000 word book creates binding problems if nothing else. The soft cover books are going to fall apart from being too thick if nothing else. This would also raise the per unit cost drastically and the publisher is going to be very picky about projects that have a high unit cost. To them it's a business not a work of art.
If you top off at 240,000 words which it seems likely you will, you do not have a book, but a series of books from many considerations. Perhaps you should treat it that way and avoid the pitfalls.
I used the chainsaw metaphor to indicate that you have an awesomely difficult edit ahead if you do not treat it as a series. Someone said you should finish the draft before you worry about marketability, but if marketing the book is the objective then I do not see how you cannot consider that hurdle from the outset. It is the most difficult hurdle face.
Regards,
Scott
200,000 words books aren't difficult to bind. Nor is a 200,000 word paperback all that thick. There are many, many paperbacks out there longer than this that have no binding problems. Certainly thousands of them. At 581,317 words, "And Ladies of the Club" is the longest paperback I have. "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" coems in second at 553,694 words.
Most of the Sptehen King novels I have are well over 200,000 words, and the binding stands up just fine. The reissued complete version of "The Stand" is 462,138 words, and it's in paperback. My orginal paperback of The Stand is twenty-eight years old, and the binding is still holding after God knows how many reads.
I have at least fifty paperbacks well above 200,000 words, and a respectable number above 300,000, a few above 400,000, and two above 500,000 words.
200,000 words is just not a very long novel, and no problem at all fod binders. It's considered mid-length in binding, and the cover can easily be cut from standard stock.
It's the per unit price you mention that's the problem. Doubling the length comes nowhere near to doubling the per unit price, but it does raise it some, and since publishers make no profit on three out of four first novels, they do want to keep the per unit price as low as possible.
But 200,000 words is not a terribly long novel in fantasy, and it's a mistake to think a publisher who won't risk money on a 200,000 word single book is going to risk money on a double or triple set of books.
Break a book into two or three parts is almost a kneejerk reaction, but unless the first book works as a stand alone novel, or unless the book is really long enough to justify a double or triple deal, and 200,000 words probably isn't from a first time writer, breaking the book up makes it harder to sell, not easier. If 300,000 words or above, it can be broken, if the first works as a stand alone, or if the publisher falls in love with it, but I'd never try to break a 200,000 fantasy, if I really wanted to sell it.
Just because pubishers take extra precautions when a first time writer aims a 200,000 word book at them in no way means that publisher is going to want the book one bit more if it's broken. They may well want it less. If it is broken, part one had darned well be a stand-alone novel, or the publisher is risking even more by taking it on.
Cut as much as can reasonably be cut, yes, but breaking a book of the wrong sort can kill it. It makes the expense and risk even greater for a publisher.
a 200,000 word novel is certainly a much tougher sell than a 120,000 word novel, but it's far, far from any sort of record, even from a first time novelist.
