| Re: Length and depth of a novel?
[quote=Spiritdragon]John
I have written and self published a SHORT novel - 32000 words.
I did make it deliberately short, and from the 400 or so sales so far the ONLY gripe has been that it is TOO SHORT...but that is a good thing isn't it?
James - it certainly isn't a good thing in terms of mainstream publication. 100,000 words is pretty much the lower cut-off, length-wise. Many novels are now 120,000 to 150,000 words long, or longer is some cases. Obviously, epic fantasy needs to be epic! Major UK publishers have been finding difficulties for some years in selling SF and fantasy novels (or any other area of fiction) of even 70,000 or 80,000 words to the book trade or mass-market readers (by which I mean the people who wander into Smiths on a wet Wednesday afternoon to pick up a book to read on the train). If you are going to pursue mainstream publication, you need to be aware of those parameters... |