fresh

[udanax]

Well not really, at 55yrs old, not too fresh I guess.
I finally finished a book, after starting a bazillion years ago. Trimmed it down/beefed it up, made it the story I wanted to read, had a couple of people I trust read it for feedback. All looks good... I should publish. Well hells-bells isn't that a pie-in-the-sky idea. The more I delve into the publishing side of things the more I feel overwhelmed. Take word counts. Fantasy should be 100k-150k, lesser side of that range if you want an agent to consider it. My behemoth stands at 334k. "Well just cut it into a couple books", right... if i try that I lose the overall arc, the secondary arc gets damaged and the first book dangles in a weird "hey we are done that, but remain partially unresolved" cause I can't complete without compromising the rest of the adventure.
Anyway, hi.
Sorry for the rant.

 

[pmmg]

Howdy Udanax, Welcome here.

334K is pretty impressive. As Thinker X like to tell me, that is more than Amazon and others will even accept is something they 'can' print, as their bindings are not suitable for as fat as a book of that length may require. So...get ready for a new challenge

Congrats on completing. Though.

Several of us have threads on discovering the publishing world. They can be found in the writers work section. Myself, Thinker X, and Skip are the most active.

 

[Avery Moore]

Hi, Udanax! Welcome to the site!

I finally finished a book, after starting a bazillion years ago.

At first I thought you meant you finished reading a book, and I was like... Well, everybody reads at different paces. Good job, buddy!

Massive congrats on finishing your first book. Sorry about the whole "Too long to be published" dilemma. Suppose there are several ways, you can go with this. You could try to publish the book as is, but that will be very difficult. You could try to split it into two or three books, but, like you said, that will break or damage some of the story arcs. Or... You could rewrite the story to include some new arcs! Have a larger arc that stretches over all 2 or 3 books, but also include smaller arcs within each of the books that can get resolved at the end, so that each book works as it's own individual story, while also being part of a bigger, overall story.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Welcome.

The book's length only really matters if you want to publish it via a traditional publisher. They care about lenght because shorter books are cheaper to create (as in it takes 3 times as long to edit a 300k book compared to a 100k book), cheaper to print, and sell for about the same. Also, being able to stick to a certain wordcount figure is seen as a (small) indication of skill.

If you want to self-publish, then no one cares how long the book is. You'll most likely sell mainly ebooks, and there it doesn't matter in the slightest if it's 100k or 300k or 30k. (Amazon does charge a download fee to authors based on file size, so it's a few cents more expensive, but that's negligible. If anything, since your book will only be seen on digital shelves, many readers wont know what length the book is. That ereader looks the same size.

Just something to consider.

 

[skip.knox]

Also, keep in mind that Tolkien regarded The Lord of the Rings as a single book. You could do the same. Just cut at a place. So long as you are self-publishing, it won't matter. pmmg is right, though, that even Amazon cannot publish a tome of 340k.

Oh, and welcome!

 

[Fidel]

Well not really, at 55yrs old, not too fresh I guess.
I finally finished a book, after starting a bazillion years ago. Trimmed it down/beefed it up, made it the story I wanted to read, had a couple of people I trust read it for feedback. All looks good... I should publish. Well hells-bells isn't that a pie-in-the-sky idea. The more I delve into the publishing side of things the more I feel overwhelmed. Take word counts. Fantasy should be 100k-150k, lesser side of that range if you want an agent to consider it. My behemoth stands at 334k. "Well just cut it into a couple books", right... if i try that I lose the overall arc, the secondary arc gets damaged and the first book dangles in a weird "hey we are done that, but remain partially unresolved" cause I can't complete without compromising the rest of the adventure.
Anyway, hi.
Sorry for the rant.

First off, congrats on finishing your book that’s a huge accomplishment, especially after so much time and effort! And hey, 55 isn’t not fresh, it’s seasoned and full of experience. As for the word count, yeah, 334k is a beast, but it sounds like the story needs that space to breathe. Maybe instead of splitting it, you could explore self-publishing? It gives you full control, and there’s definitely an audience for epic, doorstopper fantasies. Don’t let the publishing overwhelm dim your spark, you’ve already done the hardest part by writing it! And no need to apologize for the rant; it’s all part of the process. You’ve got this!