After 2 years I have finally finished my book. It has 230,000 words and as far as I know from tips the publishers do not want such long books from first-time authors. Should I try anyway or try self-publishing?
I wouldn't think so. If this is your first time writing then i might be worried. If this is your first time publishing. You might be able to get away with it. And if you can't get a publisher you can always go back and do a self publishing.
I would try cutting it in half before doing anything else. If you can't, or won't, then I think you can save yourself some time and trouble by not bothering to query agents or publishers. Just go the self-pub route. But a book that bulky is going to cost you some serious coin to publish.
Sorry guys, my mistake, the number of pages is 231, the word count is 124 k, so it is still ok. I don't know how I mistook it. Thanks anyway. Too many hours of work...probably
230k is massively too much. 124k is closer to the mark, but still a bit on the long side. And I feel I should point out that self-publishing is completely different to publishing with a publishing house. Self-publishing is more geared towards the people who only want to see their book in print, and to give to their family and friends (hence it's called "vanity publishing"), or those who fancy themselves as businessmen/women. It's a lot of hard work to make self-publishing successful.
124k is still on the long end for a first-timer, and you are better off trying to trim it down, but it still is worth trying to submit it.
ditto that... a 'saga' can sometimes allow for a longer than the optimum 80-100k and may be acceptable, as long as the story is highly marketable and the writing exceptional...
Well why not hold off trying to publish this work and get a different novel published. which might buy you some leeway when you try and publish it.
124k isn't all that large... only 231 pages, as the op corrected his mistake, in saying it was 230k...
