How Long Should a Book Be?

[The Dark One]

In my experience it is significantly more expensive to print longer books. I'm in Australia though and other countries might have better economies of scale.

My first book (when sent in and accepted) was 230k. The publisher said: I love it, but I'm not publishing more than 160k...up to you to get it down. We compromised on 190k but from his perspective the driver was very much the cost of going over 400pp. In fact, it finished up at 525pp but still far cheaper than it would have been.

The story was a lot tighter also.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

My first book (when sent in and accepted) was 230k. The publisher said: I love it, but I'm not publishing more than 160k...up to you to get it down. We compromised on 190k but from his perspective the driver was very much the cost of going over 400pp. In fact, it finished up at 525pp but still far cheaper than it would have been.

I find it astonishing that a publisher can say: I love the book, but can you get rid of 30% of it. I mean, which 30% are you supposed to get rid of? Which 30% is superfluous in a book that they loved? It makes no sense. Even at 190k, you've taken out almost 20%.

The story was a lot tighter also.

Quite possibly. But it might have been an even more cracking read at the full size, with a little more room to breathe. Was everything you edited actually unnecessary bloat? You clearly felt it was necessary when you wrote it. Sometimes fantasy needs the space of a bigger canvas.

 

[The Dark One]

Obviously I'm simplifying things a little. There was more to it than that (I worked with four different editors to get it down).

It took 18 months and I learned a hell of a lot...but for the sake of my point above...