• Café Life is the Colony's main hangout, watering hole and meeting point.

    This is a place where you'll meet and make writing friends, and indulge in stratospherically-elevated wit or barometrically low humour.

    Some Colonists pop in religiously every day before or after work. Others we see here less regularly, but all are equally welcome. Two important grounds rules…

    • Don't give offence
    • Don't take offence

    We now allow political discussion, but strongly suggest it takes place in the Steam Room, which is a private sub-forum within Café Life. It’s only accessible to Full Members.

    You can dismiss this notice by clicking the "x" box

Howling at this HOWL from a literary agent

Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
Status
Not open for further replies.

Katie-Ellen

Full Member
Blogger
Joined
Sep 25, 2014
Location
UK
LitBits
0
England
Folks. Do not do this. Or, yes do do it. You do whatever the heck you like, but don't complain if the agent ......

Seen on Twitter.

AGENT
Received a 533,000 word submission. Promptly fainted. The end.

AGENT (the same agent) Epilogue: Kid you not, a 549,000 word one just came through. You probs know where I’m going with this. I fainted.
 
He. I don't blame him. Seriously, though, who these days, not yet a known writer, would expect to find a publisher for a first novel that length? Go on. Someone say it. LOTS of people.

Tolstoy's War and Peace 587,287 words.
 
Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
We are not amused. I am, at the agent's horror. Not at the writer's chagrin but they'd better take note. This agent has set out the stall perfectly clearly, and is looking for genre fiction, especially speculative.

Word count by genre: How long should my book really be?

I hacked one back from 120k to 90k and it'll get another hacking wherever I find dead wood. It is a pity, @Robert M Derry, but hopefully, those writers are readers, studying the market, not beavering in a bubble.

It's a warning and maybe all is not lost for these prodigiously industrious writers. A series could be the way forward, predicated on placing the first one only (but there is a sequel...)

ADD

You'll note the exception. Sci Fi :) Up to 150 k.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for the word count/genre link. I already had the basic numbers, but his explanation of the rationale -- what is the reader thinking? -- was very interesting.

I would like to know the view of the e-book sector on the 100,000 barrier. As a print person, I'm familiar with the jump in book costs that comes around there -- but does it still hold for e-books?
 
Life imitating art, eh? Isn't this exactly what happens to Stingo in "Sophie's Choice" when he is presented with an endless Old Norse Saga written by some Minnesotan farmer?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest Articles By Litopians

  • Advertising and Social Media
    There has been much discussion in writing circles about how much a writer has to self-promote these ...
  • Future Abstract: Fights at Night
    SATIRE ALERT: The following abstract is entirely fictional and does not represent actual events or s ...
  • Great Novel Openings Quiz
    As writers, we all know how important it is to grip the reader from the very start. Intriguing, surp ...
  • In The Summertime
    In the early seventies, I had a semi-Afro hairstyle and a shaggy beard. . I thought I looked like th ...
  • Working with a Literary Agent
    The Querying In a previous post I mentioned that I was back in the query trenches. To recap, my earl ...
  • Danger! Danger!
    What is perhaps the most feared creature of the Borneo rainforest, I hear you ask? Who is the King o ...
  • The World Has Missed You
         May 2021… COVID lockdown restrictions had eased, so Mrs Treaclechops and I headed to the I ...
Back
Top