the stigma of the short fantasy novel

[Mark_P]

As a writer, I tend to be on the minimal side; I do not linger on overdescriptive prose. I fear my novel is going to be less than the 80,000 word "minimum" for publishing a fantasy book. Story quality aside, am I going to be fighting an uphill battle when submitting to publishers and agents if my manuscript is, say, 65,000 words?

Why doesn't the short novel get any respect in our genre? C.S. Lewis, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, and even the famously-verbose Robert Jordan have all published novels in the 200-300 page range. These are well-respected authors, yet there seems to be a modern stigma that all fantasy novels must be sprawling epics. As a reader, I simply do not have the patience to devote to doorstopper books on a regular basis. I would assume there is a similar fanbase somewhere out there.

What are your thoughts?

[kmtolan]

I've a fellow writer named T M Hunter who does quite well with novellas. He sells them to Indies and became my publisher's best selling author last year with these things. Perhaps an Indie is your best fit as well.

Kerry

[Jon Sprunk]

I think there is room for shorter novels (and novellas) in SFF. As readers, we're a pretty inclusive bunch.

[JT Billow]

What are your thoughts?

Mark P, there are several smaller publishers who are requesting submissions of novellas, and are marketing them well.

Run through this link and you'll see some houses asking for novella manuscripts.
http://ralan.com/m.publish.php/

[JT Billow]

Oh btw Mark, when I finished the first book in my series, it stood at around 70k words. However, after 5 drafts I saw an increase of between 20-30k words.

[KatG]

I don't know who told you there was a minimum of 80,000 words, but that's incorrect.

Are you trying to write alternate world fantasy or something else?

[Jon Sprunk]

I don't know who told you there was a minimum of 80,000 words, but that's incorrect.

Are you trying to write alternate world fantasy or something else?

As I, and others, have said before on these forums, these are the kinds of things we hear from industry professionals time and time again, at conferences and workshops, in discussion groups, on blogs, etc.... Since these folks are the 'gatekeepers' for traditional publishing, we (authors) tend to take their word as dogma.

Debut fantasy novel: 80-120k. I've probably heard this from at least a dozen agents and editors.

[Sterling13]

I don't know who told you there was a minimum of 80,000 words, but that's incorrect.

Are you trying to write alternate world fantasy or something else?

I stumbled onto the Pyr website yesterday, where they list a 80,000 word minimum (but no maximum is listed). That could be what he is referring to...


As Jon mentions, checking out various "information" on the internet, 80,000 to 120,000 words for a debut novel is something that seems to get passed around as gospel. Obviously, that's not a hard fast rule (and, actually, isn't even A rule), but you'll find those numbers EVERYWHERE.

I defer to the knowledge of those who have actually had dealings with agents/publishers, but from an outsider looking in, right or wrong, those seem to be the guidelines...

[KatG]

Uh huh. I wish you'd stop calling them gatekeepers, as if there's a gate. They're business partners.

What Pyr means is, we don't want novellas right now. If you come in with a 70,000 word novel Lou Anders really likes, however, I doubt that will keep him from buying it. And the 80,000-120,000 is the average range that fantasy novels hit, with the contemporary, satiric and dark fantasy novels tending to be more toward the 80,000 end and the alternate world fantasies tending toward the 120,000 (and quite often exceeding it.) The YA market has a shorter range for the average. The smaller presses like short novels very much. These ranges are essentially determined by the fact that those are the current lengths that authors like to write at. (It wasn't the publishers' idea to write doorstops.) The lower end of the average used to be 75,000 words, and before that 70,000.

If you have a novel under 70,000 words or over 150,000, you may have to let some publishers whose production parameters can't handle it turn you down. That doesn't mean that there's a "stigma" to writing short. The big houses can accommodate a wide range. You guys need to be able to distinguish "dogma" from target area.

[Jon Sprunk]

Uh huh. I wish you'd stop calling them gatekeepers, as if there's a gate. They're business partners.

You guys need to be able to distinguish "dogma" from target area.

That's why I put 'gatekeepers' in quotations.

And I don't want to engage in a senseless argument, but you're talking as if we (those who live in this industry, too) are idiots. When I say that I've heard 80k-120k from agents and editors, I don't mean I saw it on a website or read it in Writer's Market. I mean I've been part of a discussion where a well-known agent told another writer -- without seeing their manuscript -- to cut it down to under 120k words because that is the industry standard for a debut fantasy. I've sat and listened to panels where folks with impressive resumes (big name agencies and pub houses) who say this exact thing over and over to crowds of aspiring authors. I'm not defending the word count (because I believe a good story can be the exception); I'm just reporting it.

Mark and others have a valid concern. The 'dogma' is being distributed freely, not by the authors, but by those we wish to impress.

[JT Billow]

I actually keep a list of 7-8 publishers, from large house to medium, and a few small, that still take submissions from authors, where they give an actual account of ms. size they require. (ex:80-120k, 75-100k)...

[KatG]

And I've been on the panels, so I understand what you are saying. There is first off a difference between novels that are a bit short of the average range and novels that are longer than the average range. It is easier to sell ms. in the average range. It is next easier to sell novels that are shorter than the average range. It is least easiest, but not impossible to sell novels that are longer than the average range. So if you can cut, it may be good to try and cut. (Or split, as I just suggested another writer do with a 400,000 word ms.) If you can add a little, it may be good to add. And it is a good idea to know the averages of your market. If you are doing a fantasy romance or a YA, 70,000 words is in the target area.

But you need to take a look at the books the publishers, small and large, are putting out to see the actual range, and get an idea of where your baby can fit, especially if it's not on the median. The Name of the Wind was not 120,000 words or less. Jeff Vandermeer started with small press publishings of collections and his first novel was a novella, Dradin, in Love, then incorporated into his collection City of Saints and Madmen. His first "proper" novel perhaps was with Night Shade Books, Veniss Underground, which clocks in at around 200 pages.

So yes, Mark has a valid concern coming into the market with what is for category fantasy -- and category fantasy only -- a "short" work. But what isn't valid is Mark's assertion that the market stigmatizes short work and assertions that such works are prohibited from submission and publication from authors or from first time authors. That's setting up an obstacle that doesn't exist, and considering how many obstacles there already are, you don't need to be inventing additional ones.

If an agent says you should try to cut a novel down to 120,000 words, that agent is telling you that he likes to stay in the target area and doesn't want to handle large ones (though give him something interesting and get him to read some pages of it, and if he likes it enough, he'll assess whether it will work for him to sell something bigger.) Some agents are more obsessed with averages than others. If you've got two hundred ms. pages, however, most agents may be willing to take a look if the story interests them. Another alternative for Mark is to pair the 65,000 word novel with several short stories into a collection. That's hard to get in the door of a bigger house, though it's been done, and sometimes through general fiction. It's a decent shot with the smaller SFF presses and other small presses who make their bread and butter with novellas, anthologies and collections.

Either way, it does no good to say, "why won't publishers publish shorter novels" when they already do.

[Laer Carroll]

Baen managing editor Toni Weiskopf recently said that anything less than 100,000 words would make her readers unhappy. And that 250,000 words was the physically largest book Baen could publish.

Baen is the fourth largest SF imprint. For 2009 the number (originals and reprint) of titles they published was 73.

The three above Baen were Tor, Ace, and Del Rey. Their numbers were 227, 95, and 79. The three below were Roc, DAW, Wizards of the Coast. Their numbers were 61, 55, and 55.

Weiskopf's figures are just guidelines, of course. As others have remarked here if your stuff appeals to publishers they will make exceptions to their preferences.

[Sterling13]

Alright, I decided to do some digging. I started with Tor's 2009 catalog - I may expand the data from there (ie, look at a few more publishers), but here's what I have for now:

Tor 2009 (http://us.macmillan.com/splash/publi...r-forge.html):

Word Count, Established Authors (not including reprints) -
Average = 122,783
High = 177,600
Low = 81,600

Word Count, Established Authors (including reprints) -
Average = 115,799
High = 177,600
Low = 76,800

Word Count, Debut Authors -
Average = 138,600
High = 173,600
Low = 117,600

Word counts were calculated using # of pages * 300 words/page for paperback, and # pages * 350 words/page for hardcover. My initial search started here- http://www.writersservices.com/wps/p_word_count.htm - but, after a few other searches, I tempered the average word count on paperbacks down a bit. From just the books in my collection, plus a comparison of a few other novels that seem to have their word count easily accessible (harry potter, lord of the rings), the average words/page seems to be a wildlly swinging thing, varying from 250 words/page (harry potter) to 400 words/page. From what I can see, 300-350 seems to be closer to the norm.

If anyone has a better average estimating number, let me know. I know you're supposed to use 250 words/page when estimating your own books word count (Courier New, 12 point, double spaced, 1" margins), but that number seems to be low when taking the thing to paperback/hardcover.

Raw Data is as follows*:
Publisher/Title/Genre/Debut?/Reprint?/Print/Pages/Est Wordcount
Tor/Bones of the Dragon/F/No/No/Hardcover/400/140000
Tor/Whipping Star/SF/No/Yes/Trade Paperback/256/76800
Tor/Escape From Hell/SF/No/No/Hardcover/336/117600
Tor/Malestrom/SF/No/No/Trade Paperback/384/115200
Tor/Born in Blood/H/No/No/Trade Paperback/368/110400
Tor/Mind over Ship/SF/No/No/Hardcover/336/117600
Tor/Tooth and Claw/F/No/Yes/Trade Paperback/256/76800
Tor/The Horseman's Gambit/F/No/No/Hardcover/368/128800
Tor/Lamentation/F/Yes/No/Hardcover/368/128800
Tor/The Valley of Shadows/F/No/No/Hardcover/336/117600
Tor/Mortal Coils/F/No/No/Trade Paperback/592/177600
Tor/The Walls of the Universe/SF/Yes/No/Hardcover/384/134400
Tor/Neuropath/Thr/No/No/Hardcover/320/112000
Tor/The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike/Fic/No/Yes/Hardcover/304/106400
Tor/Act of Will/F/Yes/No/Hardcover/336/117600
Tor/Pebble in the Sky/SF/No/Yes/Trade Paperback/256/76800
Tor/Steal Across the Sky/SF/No/No/Hardcover/336/117600
Tor/Postsingular/SF/No/No/Trade Paperback/320/96000
Tor/Enclave/SF/No/No/Hardcover/368/128800
Tor/Viewpoints Critical/SF/No/Yes/Trade Paperback/352/105600
Tor/Imager/F/No/No/Hardcover/464/162400
Tor/The Mystery of Grace/F/No/No/Hardcover/320/112000
Tor/Dying Inside/SF/No/Yes/Trade Paperback/304/91200
Tor/The Unincorporated Man/SF/Yes/No/Hardcover/496/173600
Tor/Inferno/H-Anth/No/No/Trade Paperback/384/115200
Tor/The Last Paladin/F/No/No/Trade Paperback/272/81600
Tor/Calculating God/SF/No/No/Trade Paperback/320/96000
Tor/The Immortality Factor/Fic/No/No/Hardcover/464/162400
Tor/Beyond the Blue Event Horizon/SF/No/No/Trade Paperback/336/100800
Tor/Fire Raiser/F/No/No/Hardcover/352/123200
Tor/A Forthcoming Wizard/F/No/No/Hardcover/400/140000
Tor/Traitor's Gate/F/No/No/Hardcover/480/168000
Tor/Blood Groove/H/No/No/Trade Paperback/288/86400
Tor/The Revolution Business/SF/No/No/Hardcover/320/112000

*YA books and Anthologies were removed from the list.


While this is far too little data to make a hard conclusion, I did find it interesting that the debut authors' novels actually averaged longer than the established authors.

[Mark_P]

Thanks for the feedback, and also for the link to the Ralan website; I was not aware anything like that existed.

As KatG pointed out, perhaps it was somewhat unfair for me to state there was a "stigma" associated with shorter works of fantasy. To clarify, I was more or less referring to what seems to be popular in the genre (Martin, Jordan, Goodkind, etc.). While I understand there is a huge difference between simply being published and publishing a bestseller, I still feel my concerns are justified based on what I see on the shelves of my local bookstore.

JT mentioned indies who publish novellas; does anyone know of any indies who have actual distribution channels (aside from online sales)?