Worldcon rumblings about book length
Sep. 10th, 2004 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msagaraBack to word-count or novel length again.
One of the interesting -- and heated -- things I heard frequently on and off the convention floor was in reference to a major genre publisher's decision to go for shorter books. Yes, I know I've beat this drum before, but there was an urgency to much of the discussion that causes me to bring it up again. This wasn't theoretical; this was writers being told to cut their books in half, or to cut them down from the length they were submitted at. Not because the story is padded; not because the length is wrong for the story itself -- but for other reasons.
Part of the reason this has become such a heated topic is this: published authors, people with longer books already in print, are now being asked to write them much shorter.
This carries some negatives. If an author is perceived to be somehow slumming -- and in the case of BFF writers, this is an almost gut instinct when the next novel is significantly shorter -- people will often get tired of the work they're doing. Which isn't fair, no. But perception is part of the publishing business, and it's a perception they'll be saddled with.
Shorter in this case means two things. The first and most obvious is the acquisition of shorter books -- in this case, the number floating around was a maximum of 120,000 words, or, in manuscript pages, about 480. For the record, my shortest submission was 510 pages, in the early Del Rey years (which, at 250 words a page was just over 125K. This would also include that category in which you receive something and ask the author to cut it down to that length.
The second: cut the book into two (or possibly more) parts. The reasoning given for this goes as follows: The author can still write a complicated and complex world with multiple viewpoints -- it just takes place over more books, the idea being that the author will have a mid-point someplace in that volume that they can use as an endpoint. In this fashion, it's reasoned, the publisher will still make money and the author will make money and the readers will have a long story -- just in more books.
Ummm, okay.
The real reason for this is bottom line. While the chains are being blamed -- they want price to remain at a certain level for mid-list books -- it's really beancounters saying, in effect, we need to raise our profit margins on these books. But in talking with one editor, one very interesting point was raised: It's not even so much that the books themselves are prohibitively costly up front, when the initial print run is done -- it's that they're very hard to keep in print because the print runs for midlist books, or perhaps I should say the re-print runs, are much smaller. The economics of scale apply here: It's cheaper to print a 900 page book when you're printing 20,000 of them than it is to print that same book, per unit, at 4,000, which is what small reprint runs often are.
Which means that while the publisher could in theory afford the first printing, it would be hard for them to support the subsequent books in a series, because it's much harder to justify the cost of the reprint on a per unit basis. Which just... sucks rocks. This is often why the first printing of a novel will be 6.99, and all subsequent printings, 7.99. (These are US dollars). I would personally rather see the books be reprinted at 8.99 (which is a bestseller price, rather than a genre price) than see the various books in a series go out of print, and I'm curious to know how people feel about this in general. It's part of the reason that trade paperbacks have become so much more prominent -- it's easier to justify the cost of the printing on small runs.
But in the case of many of these authors, that isn't an option that's being offered.
I won't do the death of fill-in-the-blank here. More books printed, fewer of each title sold yada yada yada. If the cost is low enough, it still makes more sense for the publisher to print more titles -- because cutting your line by one book can merely mean cutting your inflowing cash, as there's no guarantee the buyers will then buy more of your titles for the lack of your book.
On paper, this all looks good. And -- have I mentioned this lately? -- there are a lot of people who are very vocal and who want shorter books. But there's a reason that Martin or Jordan or Goodkind sell; a reason that Carey or Haydon sell. And sell in greater numbers than most of the shorter books -- less vocal readers buy them.
I will be the first to say that there are some books that simply don't lend themselves to 300K words. They are often books I enjoy greatly, so I'm not complaining -- I'm just pointing it out. But there are some books that do. And epic fantasy is a form that doesn't in any way lend itself to 120K words. Why? Because it often takes about that long to get everything in motion; to introduce the multiple viewpoints, to hint at the size of the conflict, to foreshadow, etc. Readers expect different things from books of different lengths. From a long book, they don't expect a huge rush out of the gate, or a single viewpoint, or Stephen Brust. They expect that there will be a slow introduction of world and character and complications, and they'll read the 300 pages of that build-up to get to the 300 pages of consequence that marks the beginning of a series.
To end the book just as things are getting started is, to my reader way of thinking, to almost guarantee that a reader will be frustrated by a short book of this type. Many readers will continue reading those hundreds of slower pages as things build toward an end -- but if the build kind of just stops mid-way, so will they.
I've taken my own informal polls at the store; I've asked people the relevant questions about what they're reading, about what they expect from books of varying length. Market research, which is anecdotal and not, therefore, statistically significant. Except in the sense that the books that sell in large numbers in fantasy are the BFFs (Big Fat Fantasy) in the larger chain/non-chain context.
It's easy to point at short books that -sell-. As I've said, most romances are that length. And for romances, that's fine. And it's also easy to argue that books in series with known track records -- i.e. those who have large numbers -- will, of course, continue to be published at a greater length than those without. But… I can almost guarantee that neither Jacqueline Carey nor Elizabeth Haydon would have sold the way they did if their first books had been forced into 120K words. That, in fact, launching an epic fantasy series by cutting the books into smaller chunks goes against reader expectation; that the readers who do want the longer reads will pass over the shorter books because of built-in assumptions about what that length means, and that the readers who pick up short books will also be disappointed by the pacing and the lack of resolution.
It doesn't mean shorter books don't sell. But, to repeat myself, what a reader expects from a short book and what they expect from a long one is not the same experience.
So… what does this mean?
One of two things. If you're writing now, think of shorter stories, or shorter arcs in which to tell them, if you can. If you can't? Look at what's being published, take note of who's publishing works that are longer, and submit your finished novels to those companies. Not every company is taking this definitive a stand, and it will be interesting to see what happens in the years to follow, when the harshness of this particular publishing dictate begins to bear fruit. Things change; they always do.
One of the interesting -- and heated -- things I heard frequently on and off the convention floor was in reference to a major genre publisher's decision to go for shorter books. Yes, I know I've beat this drum before, but there was an urgency to much of the discussion that causes me to bring it up again. This wasn't theoretical; this was writers being told to cut their books in half, or to cut them down from the length they were submitted at. Not because the story is padded; not because the length is wrong for the story itself -- but for other reasons.
Part of the reason this has become such a heated topic is this: published authors, people with longer books already in print, are now being asked to write them much shorter.
This carries some negatives. If an author is perceived to be somehow slumming -- and in the case of BFF writers, this is an almost gut instinct when the next novel is significantly shorter -- people will often get tired of the work they're doing. Which isn't fair, no. But perception is part of the publishing business, and it's a perception they'll be saddled with.
Shorter in this case means two things. The first and most obvious is the acquisition of shorter books -- in this case, the number floating around was a maximum of 120,000 words, or, in manuscript pages, about 480. For the record, my shortest submission was 510 pages, in the early Del Rey years (which, at 250 words a page was just over 125K. This would also include that category in which you receive something and ask the author to cut it down to that length.
The second: cut the book into two (or possibly more) parts. The reasoning given for this goes as follows: The author can still write a complicated and complex world with multiple viewpoints -- it just takes place over more books, the idea being that the author will have a mid-point someplace in that volume that they can use as an endpoint. In this fashion, it's reasoned, the publisher will still make money and the author will make money and the readers will have a long story -- just in more books.
Ummm, okay.
The real reason for this is bottom line. While the chains are being blamed -- they want price to remain at a certain level for mid-list books -- it's really beancounters saying, in effect, we need to raise our profit margins on these books. But in talking with one editor, one very interesting point was raised: It's not even so much that the books themselves are prohibitively costly up front, when the initial print run is done -- it's that they're very hard to keep in print because the print runs for midlist books, or perhaps I should say the re-print runs, are much smaller. The economics of scale apply here: It's cheaper to print a 900 page book when you're printing 20,000 of them than it is to print that same book, per unit, at 4,000, which is what small reprint runs often are.
Which means that while the publisher could in theory afford the first printing, it would be hard for them to support the subsequent books in a series, because it's much harder to justify the cost of the reprint on a per unit basis. Which just... sucks rocks. This is often why the first printing of a novel will be 6.99, and all subsequent printings, 7.99. (These are US dollars). I would personally rather see the books be reprinted at 8.99 (which is a bestseller price, rather than a genre price) than see the various books in a series go out of print, and I'm curious to know how people feel about this in general. It's part of the reason that trade paperbacks have become so much more prominent -- it's easier to justify the cost of the printing on small runs.
But in the case of many of these authors, that isn't an option that's being offered.
I won't do the death of fill-in-the-blank here. More books printed, fewer of each title sold yada yada yada. If the cost is low enough, it still makes more sense for the publisher to print more titles -- because cutting your line by one book can merely mean cutting your inflowing cash, as there's no guarantee the buyers will then buy more of your titles for the lack of your book.
On paper, this all looks good. And -- have I mentioned this lately? -- there are a lot of people who are very vocal and who want shorter books. But there's a reason that Martin or Jordan or Goodkind sell; a reason that Carey or Haydon sell. And sell in greater numbers than most of the shorter books -- less vocal readers buy them.
I will be the first to say that there are some books that simply don't lend themselves to 300K words. They are often books I enjoy greatly, so I'm not complaining -- I'm just pointing it out. But there are some books that do. And epic fantasy is a form that doesn't in any way lend itself to 120K words. Why? Because it often takes about that long to get everything in motion; to introduce the multiple viewpoints, to hint at the size of the conflict, to foreshadow, etc. Readers expect different things from books of different lengths. From a long book, they don't expect a huge rush out of the gate, or a single viewpoint, or Stephen Brust. They expect that there will be a slow introduction of world and character and complications, and they'll read the 300 pages of that build-up to get to the 300 pages of consequence that marks the beginning of a series.
To end the book just as things are getting started is, to my reader way of thinking, to almost guarantee that a reader will be frustrated by a short book of this type. Many readers will continue reading those hundreds of slower pages as things build toward an end -- but if the build kind of just stops mid-way, so will they.
I've taken my own informal polls at the store; I've asked people the relevant questions about what they're reading, about what they expect from books of varying length. Market research, which is anecdotal and not, therefore, statistically significant. Except in the sense that the books that sell in large numbers in fantasy are the BFFs (Big Fat Fantasy) in the larger chain/non-chain context.
It's easy to point at short books that -sell-. As I've said, most romances are that length. And for romances, that's fine. And it's also easy to argue that books in series with known track records -- i.e. those who have large numbers -- will, of course, continue to be published at a greater length than those without. But… I can almost guarantee that neither Jacqueline Carey nor Elizabeth Haydon would have sold the way they did if their first books had been forced into 120K words. That, in fact, launching an epic fantasy series by cutting the books into smaller chunks goes against reader expectation; that the readers who do want the longer reads will pass over the shorter books because of built-in assumptions about what that length means, and that the readers who pick up short books will also be disappointed by the pacing and the lack of resolution.
It doesn't mean shorter books don't sell. But, to repeat myself, what a reader expects from a short book and what they expect from a long one is not the same experience.
So… what does this mean?
One of two things. If you're writing now, think of shorter stories, or shorter arcs in which to tell them, if you can. If you can't? Look at what's being published, take note of who's publishing works that are longer, and submit your finished novels to those companies. Not every company is taking this definitive a stand, and it will be interesting to see what happens in the years to follow, when the harshness of this particular publishing dictate begins to bear fruit. Things change; they always do.
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Re: Hmm.
Date: 2004-09-10 03:47 pm (UTC)midlist authors over this length" thing. Is it other booksellers, too? I
haven't seen anything official, just rumors so far...
This is almost rubbish, as far as I can tell. Or B&N are telling only select people in the industry this, and not others. What they -are- saying, though, is that they don't want books above a certain price point for mid-list authors. It's the price-point that they've set, not the length, and the publishers have that much maneuver room and no more built in. The shorter the book, the more cost effective it is to publish it -- if it sells in the same numbers as the longer books.
A 250 page 24.95 hardcover is going to be cheaper to produce than a 24.95 800 page hardcover. And 24.95 is the number I've heard floated around. Otoh, I've heard no like number for mass market paperbacks, fwiw.
Re: Hmm.
Date: 2004-09-10 05:00 pm (UTC)---L.
Re: Hmm.
Date: 2004-09-10 05:06 pm (UTC)But I'd heard over and over again that B&N was saying the books had to be short if they were mid-list, and this made no sense to me, so I badgered few editors and reps from different companies, and that was as close to an answer as I got; none of the editors said that it was B&N, or that they'd been told this, fwiw. One seemed very surprised that I'd asked.
Re: Hmm.
Date: 2004-09-10 06:03 pm (UTC)Ah! Okay. Over at Speculations' Rumor Mill, they'd been discussing this, and someone posted that it was B&N in specific saying they wanted shorter books.
That makes a lot of sense about the price point. As a reader, I'm not likely to pick up a longer book from a midlist author, unless I've heard good things about said author or personally know hir, because it's just not worth the risk. With MMP's nearly $10, I can't afford it, especially since the majority of BFF's I've read could have benefited from serious trimming.
If it's about the price involved, it makes a lot more sense than it being, "We just want more shelf space," which is how some people put it across.
Re: Hmm.
Date: 2004-09-10 06:23 pm (UTC)Years ago -- years and years ago, before I was published -- I'd heard that this was the case from a number of authors. Authors can be told any number of things, half of which are completely accurate. Therefore this may have been true at that time. It wasn't true in the Canadian chains at that time, but I know that Ace books was said to be pushing for shorter books on behalf of one of the chains in the US.
Things do change, and I haven't heard this in the last decade. The price point, otoh, I've heard from a few editors at different houses. But not all of the editors I'd asked had heard this, fwiw. Either that, or they weren't in a position to volunteer the information.
At the moment, with the difference in price being a dollar or two, I'll pick up anything that seems interesting. If a thick book cost twice what a smaller book did, I'd be a lot more careful. There are readers in the store who do the exact opposite; the look at the 9.99 paperback and at the 10.99 paperback, and if the 10.99 one is longer, they'll often buy that because their perception of value is weight.