Bisky's Twitterling's Scribbles! discussion

Hi all, thanks for helping me with my book cover dilemma, between here, twitter and my blog, the overwhelming opinion was to go with the sword!

Yesterday, I completed the first draft of X-Calibur: The Return, and the total word count is just over 55k words. This surprised me, as my Benjamin Knight novels clock in at about 100k words per book (the third is a little longer at 115k).

I accept that 55k is a novel, and that I've told the story I wanted to tell without (hopefully) meandering and giving too much/too little detail, so the question is really does the length of the book actually matter?

Is it quality over quantity, or are people put off by books that may appear 'too short' (or maybe too long for that matter).

I'm on my first run through now, and will do 2 or 3 before it goes to beta readers and then an editor, so the length may change a little but I wouldn't expect a huge change in the length.

What do you think?

There are always going to be people who look at a book's length and judge it. I am less likely to touch a book that is under 200 pages and I'd be more than happy to look at a book that is 500, 600, even 900 pages. I will pick up a shorter book, but I'm skeptical that it's not a finished book (of course that doesn't mean those bigger books aren't filled with a lot of unneeded fluff but I'm less skeptical for some reason). On the flip side, there are people who are not as likely to pick up those big books and more likely to pick up the shorter one.

What I'm trying to get at is, if the book is finished, then that's all that matters. Don't add in fluff just to make it longer and don't take important things out just for the sake of length. Only add or subtract something in if you feel it helps the story. So yes, quality of quantity.

Thanks! That was what I needed!

This is a very good question. I've agonized over this A LOT! I have a trilogy I'm in the middle of publishing that I originally thought would be one book with three parts. Well that was about 140k, but as I understand it a book that size intimidates a large segment of readers. My solution was to break it into three separate books so I ended up with 25k, 55k and 55k books. Books 2 and 3 are fine, but the obvious problem is the 25k first book, The Golden Merra. I tried beefing it up, but it just felt forced and I wasn't happy with it. In the end, I accepted that Book 1 is supposed to be a novella. But if you look at some classic reads like The Great Gatsby or Of Mice and Men I can't imagine they're any more than 50k. So I say just go with that...maybe X-Calibur will be a classic on school reading lists one day ;)

LOL! If only, who knows!

Will have to check out The Golden Merra, thanks for your input

I agree with what the others said. There are readers who won't read a shorter book. As for me, I hate it when a book feels like it was padded to get the extra word count in there. If you have told all of the story you have to tell at 55K, then you shouldn't worry about trying to make it bigger.

I am trying really hard not to make an inappropriate size comment. Some days it is soooooo hard to be good.

LOL!

I put the smiley wink in the title so feel free to add a slightly inappropriate comment....

Size does matter up to a point. Longer novels sell better than shorter ones. Especially so if they are stand alone novels. It also depends on the genre and audience. A younger audience is more likely to pick up shorter books. The sweet spot for YA novels s between 40-60 K. Epic Fantasy novels on the other hand should be at the very least 100 K words. If you do a google search on wordcount and sales then you can find some statistics that can help you figure out where that sweet spot is for the genre and audience you are trying to reach. Of course if it is well written and you intend for the first book to be a loss leader or cheap introduction to a longer series then that changes things as well. Series of books tend to sell better than stand alone novels.

Thanks for that, Brian, I'll have a look at the statistics.

It is aimed at a YA audience and the start of a series of books I plan on writing. I intend to offer it for free when I have three books ready and published, but I've already tried to do that with my Benjamin Knight series, and despite me asking people to report to amazon that it is free elsewhere (kobo and google play), amazon still haven't price matched.

Is that worth a thread? Links for books people want to make free on kindle for us to report to amazon?

@R It is definitely worth it to get that book listed as free on Amazon. They are the largest retailer of books in the world.

Also if you're going to look into the data available, there is an author earnings report that show some interesting trends. I would definitely check that out if you're interested in this stuff.

Thanks again, will start a new thread re making the book free

Personally, I prefer books that are over 200 pages. Is this book in a series? And if so, how big are the other books in the series?

If it is not part of a series where the other books are significantly longer, and it tells the story well, then it should be fine.

For Kevin, I would prefer to get a 145,000 book that told the whole story. I hate getting a book that I get to the end of, only to find that nothing has been resolved, and it is only the first part of what should have been one book. Be sure that your first part has its own story arc, and end with a proper resolution...

This book is the first in a series, not sure how long the others will be, they are only sketched out in my head! This tells a complete story (humanities enslavement and subsequent fight for freedom).

If anyone wanted to read it, I would really appreciate it?

As long as the story is complete and it is able to keep my atention until the end, the length is just a secondary detail.