How Do I Find An Agent For A Large Novel?

Shawn Oueinsteen said:

My novel is 180,000 words. I've had a lot of people read it, including some prefessional writers and editors, and when I ask if it is too large, if it seems to have fluff, the answer is always, "not at all. It holds attention. It is hard to put down." But agents see the word count and reject me immediately.

Are there agents who like large novels? If so, how do I find one?

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It's not about agents 'liking' anything - it's about what an agent can sell. That's a very, very hard thing to attempt to sell from an unknown writer.

A 180,000 word novel cost more to publish than say a 100,000 word novel. It cost more for set up, ink, paper and the binding is special and thus the price is going to be higher than normal. Bookstores have to have faith also that they can move such a large novel by an unknown author at a higher price than a known author.

Very risky for a first time author who has no sales history.
Not saying it can't happen, but as Cornflake says, the agent has to know who will accept such a large novel and what he/she can sell it for.

Good luck with this...

Agree with the others.

Adding: It also depends on your genre and demographic. For example, it's not uncommon to see those word counts in SciFi and Fantasy--it's still a gamble, and publishers nowadays are more hesitant. Another example: For YA, any genre, that word count is almost three times as much of what typical publishers look for--and some of them are very strict. (The highest word count of a YA book I can think up is Twilight approaching 120K)

And, no offense but I do doubt that every word is worth its weight in gold. But, I don't know, I haven't read it.

In all cases, you could cut the story down into two/three segments and create their own stand-alone stories to make a duo/trilogy. This might be an easier sell (saying it's already hard selling a series), but it might be doable. You would query your first story with the label "has series potential" and you'll have to see if the publisher will take all three, or just one at a time to test the waters.

We're trying our best to answer your question, because I believe there is no real answer to your question.

OK, tell me, what is your novel's genre? Because I can give you a list of agents who typically work with word counts in the millions, but it won't help if those agents don't accept your genre and demographic--let alone fiction.

Shawn, the best answer to "how can I find an agent for my 180,000 novel?" is "Good luck with that." It isn't a question of how hard it is to put down, or the fact that it isn't puffy. It could be the awesomest book ever, and you will have a devil of a time finding an agent for it if you are an unpublished or even little published author.

Let's look at some estimated word counts that might help illustrate this.
Stephen King's Tommyknockers, 260,000 words. His first book, Carrie, 60,000 words.
JK Rowling's Order of the Phoenix, 257,045 words. Her first book, Sorcerer's Stone, 76,944.

See a trend here? What people are trying to tell you is that there are no good ways to find an agent for your debut 180k novel because most won't poke a debut novel at that word count with a stick. It's a giant publishing risk in trade publishing, and a hard sell.

So, what do you do? You could forget trade publishing and go straight to digital publishers. They aren't as concerned by word count, because they don't have trade publishing printing costs to worry about. Or, you could write your next book, a far shorter book, and try to get that published first. Carrie wasn't the first book Stephen King wrote. It was the first he got published. The shorter length surely had a lot to do with that.

I don't see what you have to gain from spending time researching agents with clients with long novels. It's going to be faster just to query any agents who match in terms of genre/theme preferences. And more likely to see success, as there's no telling if an agent with short-novel clients would be willing to look at longer work, other than by trying.

Since you don't seem to get the difference between 'long books by authors with good track records' and 'long books by authors without good track records', here's the easy answer:

You find agents who sell long books by finding long books and learning who the agents are who sold them. This will often be in the acknowledgments; sometimes, you can find out who agents an author by checking the author's website or by googling the author's name plus the word 'agent', which can lead you to an agent's client list.

However, since you're in the 'authors without a good track record' group, we're trying to tell you that your search isn't hugely likely to get you an agent for a 180K book. Sorry, but a book 35 years ago doesn't put you into the 'authors with a good track record' group. It just doesn't. It doesn't mean your track record is bad; it means your track record is both small and old, and it therefore doesn't indicate that you already have a good following with large numbers of readers ready to plunk down the kind of money a big book sells for.

A better strategy might be to write a different, shorter book, get an agent, and when they ask you what else you have, you tell them about this one. This could be a book an agent can sell once you acquire that good track record.

JulianneQJohnson said:

So, what do you do? You could forget trade publishing and go straight to digital publishers. They aren't as concerned by word count, because they don't have trade publishing printing costs to worry about.

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Printing is only a small part of a book's production costs, so this isn't the reason that some e-publishers are happy to work with books which are not the usual lengths.

There are a number of conversations about this: if I remember I'll hunt down a few links and add them here.

Shawn Oueinsteen said:

Let me rephrase the question. How do I find an agent who has a history of accepting a high-wordcount novel?

I've Googled first novels that are large and checked who their agents are, but it's a slow and unwieldy process. I'm hoping someone here will know of such agents, or direct me to a tool that easily shows the size of novels agents give positive responses to. (QueryTracker has a Premium report that comes close, but it's not really intended for my purpose and is hard to use.)

P.S., I am not a first-time author. I sold a novel 35 years ago. (So my second problem is that I am not young, but I can manage not to tell agents that in my query.) I'm not a newbee. I know why large novels by new authors are hard to sell. I'm looking for an answer to my question, which I'll repeat: How do I find an agent who has a history of accepting a high-wordcount novel?

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Shawn, you're beginning to sound a little belligerent and rude here, so let me remind you of AW's one rule before you cross the line: respect your fellow writer. It's all in the Newbie Guide.

There's no point you finding an agent who has sold long books if she only sells romance and yours is hard crime. Look for good agents who work in your genre. If your book is good enough they'll overlook its length. If it isn't, then they'll reject you. Simple.

You could try querying without mentioning the novel's length: then you might find out if the length is what's getting it rejected, or if the problem lies with your query, or (if you get to partials stage) the writing.

Or you could pay out for an editorial report (companies worth considering in the UK include The Literary Consultancy, Cornerstones, The Writers' Workshop), or once you get to 50 posts here, you could put up your first thousand words for critique and see what our army of critters think about them. If they can't spot a word out of place then you're good to go; if most of them think your writing could do with trimming down, then you might have some work ahead of you.

Meanwhile, I hope you're working on your next book.

The only recent debut novel I can remember of that length was "Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke, which weighed in at a hefty 327,000+ words. While it was a bestseller and even now is being made into a television series for BBC, rumors abounded it didn't earn through the advance and print costs. The price point was high, at $27.95, so that might have been part of the problem.

But I've heard (again, rumors from industry people I know, because the publisher certainly wouldn't talk about a flop) that it's made publishers leery of large debuts.

Still, yours might be the exception. All you can do is keep trying. In other words, there aren't any agents who state they're open to large books. But they're all open to GOOD books, regardless of length. I'd suggest you leave the word count out of the query and only put it in the synopsis. At least the people who read that will already have some interest and might look past the size.

Cathy C said:

The only recent debut novel I can remember of that length was "Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke, which weighed in at a hefty 327,000+ words.:

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Susanna Clarke had a very strong track record in SFF short stories before JS&MN was contracted. If she'd been a complete unknown (or had had only a single book published several decades ago), she probably wouldn't have been offered a contract for that book as her debut novel.

I'd try cutting the novel to a more wieldy size. Not long ago I cut a 170K novel to 117K while ADDING content. As a first draft "long writer," I expect to do that, and so have gotten practiced in eliminating the words words words that really don't need to be there.

How wordy (maybe good words, but still unnecessary) a writer you may be, no one can say. If you stick around to 50 posts, try putting up a sample of the novel in the Share Your Work forum.

Otherwise, just query every agent in your genre. However big a thud your MS might make on their desks, it might still hit the right one.

Query based on your genre, not your word count, and it wouldn't hurt to include a line like this in your query:

I realize that 180K is long, but I'm willing to break the story into more than one volume, and I am not adverse to serious edits if you believe the book would be more marketable at a shorter length.

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I realize that 180K is long, but I'm willing to break the story into more than one volume, and I am not adverse averse to serious edits if you believe the book would be more marketable at a shorter length.

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(I realize that kind of makes me look like a dick; I just did that in case the OP decides to paste that line into the query...er...I'm not trying to be a dick, I promise. I don't even have the outfit for it...)

Old Hack said:

You could try querying without mentioning the novel's length: then you might find out if the length is what's getting it rejected, or if the problem lies with your query, or (if you get to partials stage) the writing.

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Has anyone tried this?

buzhidao said:

(I realize that kind of makes me look like a dick; I just did that in case the OP decides to paste that line into the query...er...I'm not trying to be a dick, I promise. I don't even have the outfit for it...)

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Dick.

Little Ming said:

Dick.

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*sigh* I guess I have to go shopping.

Little Ming said:

Has anyone tried this?

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Last year I took part in a radio broadcast about publishing. A well-known UK literary agent was also on the panel, and he said that he'd taken on a brilliant book by a very promising debut author. He was so keen on the book that he didn't realise how long it was until an editor rejected it because of its length. The editor said that she'd be willing to look at it again if it was cut by 25%, and so the agent fiddled about with the formatting of the manuscript until its pagecount was 25% less, and sent it back; and the editor accepted it.

The book has gone on to sell in good quantity. I've spoken to the editor concerned and yep, it really did play out like that.

I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to play tricks like this; if I were the OP and keen to see this book published I would definitely cut it before querying it; but as the OP has made it clear that he's not prepared to cut it, this might be his only option.

There's a tiny chance it might work. There's a much bigger chance that agents and editors will reject it because they're used to seeing word counts omitted on larger works. But with an inflexible word count of 180k, desperate measures might be called for.

Patrick Rothfuss selected a section from one of his books (from a series), gave it a "faux" ending and submitted it to Writers of the Future.

Won quarter 2 back in, ehhhh.... 2002? 2003?

His work was well-received. This (and making notable connections at the shindig) seemed to be what got his manuscript into the right hands.

Not saying everyone will have this Cinderella story here, but it's something. WotF lets you retain all rights for your work. Other contests might as well? (Some may not.)

It's a long shot, but if it's as good as others are telling you, this is one possible avenue to take.

Agent here: I only notice the page-count in the query if it is absurdly long or short. I actually do NOT notice if it isn't mentioned.

If I were you... well if I were you I'd either edit or cut the book into two parts. But FAILING that, I'd query the best agents, not mention the word count, and hope that they love your query and sample enough to be hooked and want to read more. If they do, they'll give the ms a chance. And if they fall hard for it, you're in business.