I had a question about word counts. I’m trying to figure out what the proper format for a manuscript is and came across a snag. What would you consider to be an average word count for your books or at least a word count for a new author? The story I’m working on already hit 150,000 and it’s not even done, but I heard that if it’s too long then some editors automatically reject it.

Editors don’t typically automatically reject things on the basis of length alone.  Most often they reject them because writing isn’t quite there, or their line-up already has something similar, or the novel doesn’t fit with what they already publish.

A typical length for a UF is around 90,000-100,000 words.  It used to be typographic word count, but now more and more people just go with MS Word’s word count.

Unfortunately,  150,000 is what’s colloquially known among writers as BFB – Big F-ing Brick.  There are genres in which such length is acceptable.  Epic fantasies, for example, tend to be long.  Historic fiction, also – you could kill someone with  an early Sharon K. Penman’s book.  But if you’re writing a UF, a paranormal, a contemporary fantasy, ora  mystery, you have to prepare yourself to make some sacrifices.  You may be asked to split the novel in two.  You may be asked to cut.  Gordon and I had to chop off a quarter of the MAGIC BITES to make it fit into 90,000 limit.  It took hitting some bestseller lists before the word limit was relaxed.  That’s the good thing about having a little bit of sales – you get more leeway.

The question to ask yourself is , why is your book so long?  Are you meandering?  Is there a ten day trip in there that can be summarized in two sentences?  Do people have terribly important debates that add nothing to the plot?  Are you in love with a page-long description of an abandoned movie theater?

My advice would be to take a good hard look at the narrative and cut the fat.  Give your novel to someone who doesn’t feel obligated to pet you on the head.  Is he bored reading it?  Cut the boring parts.

But, if you are completely and definitely sure that your work must remain at the current length, then write the best query letter you can write and make sure your first chapter would knock the editor’s socks off.  They will take it from there.

M writes

I’m curious about how drafts work when you’re published. I know when you’re unpublished, the general rule of thumb is 3+ drafts before subbing it out. How many drafts do you guys generally go through before you hand the manuscript in? Also, do you do a lot of editing while you write or do you wait to make changes and corrections to the story during copy-edits?

As many as it takes.

The point of redrafting is to produce the best book possible.  If there is some kind of rule out there that tells you to rewrite an arbitrary number of times, that rule is stupid and should be kicked to the curb.  I’d like to meet the person who came up with that nonsense and pop him upside the head for driving future writers crazy.

The number of drafts doesn’t matter.  Only the end product does.  Some books take one draft, some take eight.

We do edit as we write.  Most of the editing comes in the form of adjusting the narrative.  For example,  we have an exploding corpse in Kate 5.  Gordon and I wrote the scene, but it felt off.  The scene would be better set during magic instead of tech, because magic would let us get creepier.  But as it was, the scene couldn’t have magic because magic fell that morning.  It took me a whole weekend to realize that I must split the scene off and move it to next day.  As a result, I had to go back, rename Chapter 4 as Chapter 5, move the front scene to the end of Chapter 3 and write an entirely new Chapter 4.

That’s normal, just as the cleaning as you go along is normal. I type with my key board in my lap because regular chairs kill my back and I typo a lot as I write.  (I do wish Liquid Binder would run the spellcheck all the time, but they don’t.  If I find software that let me do the same file management as the Binder but runs the spellcheck, I will pounce on it.)  I usually go back and clean what I wrote every day or two.  Plus, Gordon cleans it in rewrites.

To reiterate, focus on the book, not the rewrites. 

Some things might be broken, but hopefully everything will be back to normal soon.

Please bear with us.

I post one thing.

Look!  Two socks at the same time.

Kats and dogs sleeping together.  Mass hysteria.

Okay, I go now.

Enter here.

Are there really 7 books in the series for Kate???

What kind of time frame is there between the use of a power word and when the physical cost for saying/using it comes? Does it vary? Do power words work against vampires? Can someone use the same one she used against Derek and get them to obey without a handler? Sorry. I think of all these technical things when I read….

Kate did already in Magic Burns

The pain slashed my back.  I strained and let out a single word.       “Amehe.”

The power word tore from me in a flash of agony as if my insides were suddenly ripped from my stomach.  The wall shielding the reeve’s mind shattered.  Diaperhead howled in his tentacle net.

The gaping pit that was the reeve’s mind opened before me.  I took it into my fist and squeezed.  The hair noose loosened.  The hair still held me, but the crushing pressure had vanished.

I looked through the reeve’s eyes and through my own.  Through this strange double vision I saw Julie curled on the floor in a tiny fetal ball.  Diaperhead stared at me.  I sensed him waiting in the deep recesses of the reeve’s mind.  He brimmed with hate, not just for who I was but for what I was.  He seethed, his rage barely contained, a malignant terrible creature who wished the end of the human kind.  Disgust swelled in me, an instinctual xenophobic response, so strong, it threatened to overwhelm all reason.

I forced the hair to unwind.  It let me go slowly, hesitantly.  Even with a power word, I wouldn’t be able to hold the reeve for long.  The moment I fumbled, Diaperhead would seize control.

Reeves aren’t vampires, but it’s the same principle.

Someone asked me about what was better for the author, to have the book preordered or to buy it. I am sorry, I can’t find the email for the life of me. I must’ve accidentaly deleted it.

To answer this have to break one of my rules. I try to limit promotions on the blog. I’ll do giveaways, but I very rarely post reviews (unless they are surprising. I wanted to post this one review from Amazon where the woman was so shocked by Magic Bites, she burned the book. I was terribly proud, but Jeaniene made me promise I wouldn’t.)

But anyhow, when I was an aspiring author, I’d frequent published author blogs and some of them would cram promo down your throat. “Three days till Poopsie the Conqueror releases! It’s not too late to preorder! Order now! Buy my Book!”   Some of that is inevitable – I do it, too, but some guys turn it into a relentless Buy My Book campaign.  Used to drive me nuts, so I try not to do it. Some of my neurotic stress does come through, but what are you going to do?

This falls squarely into that I won’t talk about it category. But it was asked, so, in purely academic terms: is it better to preorder or to buy in the store?

It’s better to buy it in the store within five business days of the release date. Why? Because the first week of release is the week when most books sell in greatest numbers. The performance in the first week determines whether the author will make USA Today or NYT Bestseller lists. The lists are really important. Making a list will likely result in bigger advance, better promo, and so on. We all want to make the list, me included.

Most books are soft released, which means that bookstores put them out on the shelf about 14-7 days before their official release date. Bookstores do this for a number of reasons, some as simple as inventory management. They want to get the book on the shelves and into customers’ hands.

Authors hate this practice. Let’s say you’re author A and you need to move about 6K books in your first release week to make NYT. You get soft released and your book sells 3K in the week before release and 4 K in the release week. You do not pass go, do not collect bigger advance, do not earn monetary bonus written into your contract and you hate the world for a few days after.

Usually preorders were traditionally counted as release week purchases, but this holiday season, perhaps due to depression, some online retailers shipped books 10 days prior to release date. It’s not clear if those sales were reported and when.

That said, I don’t expect anyone to wait until release date to purchase my stuff. Everybody, unless they are a huge name, gets soft released. Everybody loses a percentage of sales. It’s an even playing field and there is no reason the fans should be penalized for this. Harlequin offers their titles in eform a month before they are released, and if there is a new Susan Napier, Lynne Graham, or Penny Jordan coming out, you bet I’ll snap it up.

In the end, sales are sales. First week, week before first, 18 weeks after release, it all counts. And that is all I will say on this subject

Every night had to end eventually. The sun always rose. Always went down too, a little while later. Barring any disaster-movie-worthy cataclysm, the Earth would keep right on spinning. With that in mind, I knew it was only a matter of time until another force of nature bore down on me.

My mother.

She didn’t do it during the wedding, an act that permitted my sister to get married in peace. She went the entire ceremony without comment, she threw birdseed, took photos, and rode in the car to the reception hall without a single mention of it, jabbering happily as we followed the couple’s limousine.

Technically, there is nothing wrong with this.  This will be more a discussion than a crit.

Let’s talk a little bit about content.

There a bit of conflicting imagery going on here:

Every night had to end eventually. The sun always rose. – Reassuring image.  It can’t rain all the time.

Always went down too, a little while later. – Image implies danger – all good things come to an end.

Barring any disaster-movie-worthy cataclysm, the Earth would keep right on spinning.- Reassuring image.

With that in mind, I knew it was only a matter of time until another force of nature bore down on me. – Image implies inevitable danger.

There is too much back and forth going on. It might help if we pick a single message to create mood. Since it seems that mother is more of tornado-type occurrence, rather than a gentle spring rain,  I’d suggest toning down the positives and reinforcing the Good Thing Come To an End theme.  For example – and this is just me messing around, not an actual revision suggestion:

Every summer had to end eventually.  The sun always rose, but always went down too, a little while later.  The Earth kept right on spinning, bringing with it typhoons, tornadoes, and hurricanes. With that in mind, I knew it was only a matter of time until a disaster-movie-worthy cataclysm bore down on me.

My mother.

She didn’t do it during the wedding, an act that permitted my sister to get married in peace. – What is it?  I’m guessing it refers to her mother’s assault upon her person.  Since the mother is actually not acting, perhaps we could drop “the act that” out of the sentence.

She didn’t do it during the wedding, permitting my sister to get married in peace.

That’s it.  It was technically very sound.  Just needs a bit of content adjustment.

O_o.

Obviously it skips a generation.

Scarred me for life.

Fast forward a few years.  I can cook, knit, crochet, cross-stitch, embroider and assist with science fares.

I still can’t sew.

The youngest wants a Konata outfit for the con.  The oldest wants to be Misa Amane.  Now I got Misa’s skirt in one evening.  It’s a black skirt with a lace underskirt under it.  No sweat.

Konata’s skirt is Japanese uniform skirt.  With stripes.  It’s pleated.

On top of everything else she told me so nicely, “Mom, it’s okay that there is no outfit.”

Obviously, come hell of high water there will be an outfit now.

:: lands on the ground face down::

I got it to the zipper stage.  I have no clue what a zipper foot is.