I can't imagine anyone, as you say, "assuming that your book is so great that even though people haven't heard of you, publishers will be willing to ignore all the risk factors of publishing an expensive book by an unknown." I personally assume that publishers look at all risk factors, even if people have heard of me, and even if my book is that great. That's their job. They can do their job. So I guess I'm going to have to agree with you. I just don't think that the arrogance you refer to exists, and I don't think anyone has ever made the assumption to which you refer. I think it's a faulty assumption to assume that anyone has ever assumed that assumption. Charlie
Rei ~ Isn't a little bit of arrogance necessary, especially for a new author, to get your book published in the first place? In the face of over-whelming odds and an expected land-slide of rejection letters, should we not be the champion of our own book? It crosses the line when you go from feeling deep down in your heart that your book stands out, to being pompous about it and ignoring the input of others. I'm not trying to pick a fight....really....I'm just trying to get the lay of the land.
Not arrogance, confidence. Arrogance is thinking that you are better than you are, or better than others without concrete reasons. Confidence is believing in what you have, being aware of all your strengths, knowing what your limits are and that you can overcome them. The arrogant response to a rejection letter is, "I'm too good for them." or "They were idiots to reject me." The confident one is, "They can only accept so many submissions at one time. I know I have a good book. There is at least one agent/publisher out there who will accept it."
what no one seems to have brought up so far is this: first, you must query... and in that query, you must give the approximate total word count of your ms... and THERE is where the first chance to reject your work lies... the sad [and practical, from the other side's pov] fact of writing life is that the mail readers [next to never the agent or publisher's editor themselves] will often routinely toss [or send out a rejection for, if they're the kind kind] any query that offers a book that falls beyond their firm's submission guidelines' acceptable parameters in any way... and size is the first thing that jumps out at them... so, if you are offering a 135k ms to a publisher that says it wants between 80 and 100k, you've lost out before anyone can even read your may-be-wonderful first chapter... and if the agent you send that query to believes s/he won't be able to sell a book that size easily enough to make some money on, they'll not request the sample chapters, either... so, all this discussion over how good the writing/story may be is moot, since with a too-big ms, chances are no one will ever read a word of it...
I don't think you should stress out about something like that. I mean, if you've got a manuscript, you've basically met the first step of publishing. Also, you can cut off a surprisingly large amount of text off if you attempt to reduce certain scenes down to ONLY the crucial information, or things that add a lot to the plot or mood.
Some publishers to prefer novels over 100,000 words. Ace/Roc state they prefer 75,000 to 125,000. DAW says lengths vary, but almost never under 80,000 Baen wants 100,000 to 130,000 but is very uncomfortable with anything under 100,000. The last two markets mentioned above, when you submit, want the full manuscript. It really depends on the market you're writing for, but a common thread here indicates 100,000 is pretty safe (based on these three) but a bit higher isn't going to shoot you out of the water before even being considered. Of course, I am more familiar with fantasy/sf markets. Others (mystery, romance, etc) may be totally different. Terry
This was the point I was trying to make, which is exactly why I say it is arrogant to think that your book is so good that they will be willing to go outside the guidelines. It can happen. I once saw a debut novel that was 900 pages. But you can't count on it..
I know.....that was a really good post. The point I was trying to make was.... the sad [and practical, from the other side's pov] fact of writing life As it is most of the time, there is no right answer.
HAHAHAH! Reading this, I can just IMAGINE my downfall! "Wow, Atari! This book looks great, so far! Now, uh-- tell me the word count." "Uh. . . umm. . . 2,306. . . pages. . . ." "Eeeeeyyyeeeaah. . . I'm sorry, but this is just isn't what we're looking for. . . right now."
Well, I don't have it written, yet. It could end up anywhere from 900 to two-thousand pages, but I am determined to not divide, split, chop, hack, saw, condense, crop or shorten it, with no compromise. If I have to, I'll write several short books or an article for a magazine, or something. This book, though-- it should be a masterpiece. I want it to be a long, engulfing adventure with page-turner qualities and epic concepts and situations. Remember that book you read that was around four-hundred pages that you read in one day or only a couple of days because you couldn't put it down? You were flipping pages like you were searching for a page, but in actuality, you were just eating it up quickly because it was so good? And then, when you got to the end, you were flipping between the last page and the back cover, asking yourself, "What?! That's it? No more?!" Well, THAT'S the kind of book I want to write-- only a lot longer to sate the reader's appetite. (Though, if written properly, it should never sate the reader, but leave him hungry for more, so that he has to reread it to get his fix)
