Next step: publishing

The book is finished. Soon, very soon, everyone will be able to read Xmas Carol. I'm not sure how long it will take before it appears in the Kindle bookstore. I'm working on that now. Once the Kindle version is out, I'll figure out how to publish the other versions. It's like the PC/Mac divide -- there are different e-reader platforms with different rules.

I spent the morning wrangling with formatting. Professionals want a lot of money to format your ebook. Not gonna happen. If the book is successful, I'll return to the formatting issue one day. But for now I'm just going to put out a clean-looking, basic book (with a fabulous cover).

As for the blurb, I think I've got one that works. I looked at the blurbs on current ebooks and didn't like them at all. Everything is written in the present tense, like this:

When Ginger realizes that Bubba intends to kill her, she pulls out all the stops and tries to kill him first.

The present-tense seems clunky to me. Mine will be different. That's all I'll say for now.

I'm a bit worried about the length of the book. People don't seem willing to read a "long" book these days. It might hurt their head, I guess. Current fiction is quite brief. The books are more like novellas than novels. My book is more than double the length of most horror novels out there. But I swear it's a quick read. Readers just fall into the book and tumble out the other end. Xmas Carol goes down like candy. I really can't see anyone (except religious wingnuts) wanting it to end until the final page. Even then, they'll want more. So I'm going to toss my worries aside and release a 200,000-word novel to an 80,000-word public. We'll see how it goes.

I'll report back when I reach the next stage. But hey, the book is done!

Word counts for novels

I keep reading posts in writing forums where the the writer is fretting about their manuscript nearing 100,000 words. They seem to think there's a line at 100k that you must not go beyond under any circumstances -- and that 80,000 words is ideal for a novel. What planet are these people living on? And they say this line in the sand is drawn by potential book publishers. What?

I suspect all these people are from the new non-reading public even though they're allegedly writers. And perhaps publishers aim only for that market these days, thinking there are no real readers left.

Personally, I'm thrilled when a book that I'm enjoying goes on and on, and I've read many novels that were over 1,000 pages. In case you're not familiar with word counts, that's a hell of a lot more than 100,000 words -- more like a million or more. Length is something a writer shouldn't think about. If it's good, it's good. What does size have to do with it?

It's strange. I guess in the new YA (young adult) market, which seems to be the one most writers aim for these days, they like short books. You don't want to stress those readers' brains. But this is nonsense talk. Xmas Carol is well over 200,000 words -- and I don't think it's a long book at all. If I picked it up, I'd finish it in two or three days. That's too long?

A book that's only 80,000 or 90,000 words is a novella, the way I see it. And novellas suck. What's your opinion? Aren't you upset when a good book ends? You want it to go on forever, right? How could it be otherwise?

Do fat books need a diet?

Now, I love a long book -- if it's a good one. Who doesn't? (I know, I know, just about everyone lately.) But it seems to me there are a lot of sci-fi and horror books out there that are way too long, for no good reason at all.

Dean Koontz, I love ya, guy but your books should be half as long. When readers skim through sections because they're not essential to the story, you have a problem. I admire your stories and recognize your tremendous talent. I just wish the tales weren't . . . let's see . . . buried under extraneous elements. 

Stephen King, you out there? I can't say I love you but I used to, I really did. Your first book, "Carrie", was a masterpiece -- a short masterpiece. Your talent was so raw and vital that it raged across every page. The story moved swiftly, showing readers only enough and never more. But now you write endless tomes that should be one-fifth as thick, by my reckoning. And if the raw talent is still there, I can't find it under such a heavy pile of words. Sorry, but I'm being honest. I miss that guy who wrote Carrie (and Pet Sematary) and I wonder if he'll ever rise to the surface again. I sure hope so.

Lately I find myself wondering if this a common writers' disease. Is it catching? More to the point, am I already infected and exhibiting the symptoms? The three books I wrote ended up being progressively larger. If the three manuscripts were sitting side by side on a table, you could identify each by its size.

"The Worlds" is 88,000 words; "The Pod, the God and the Planet" is 135,000 words; and "Xmas Carol" weighs in at a meaty 202,000 words. So have I caught Book Growitis? I sincerely hope not.

In fact, it seems my size progression may be turned back in the next edit of "Xmas Carol", the horror novel. I'm getting feedback that the beginning may be too slow. Everyone is interested at the start and it seems they're fairly interested for a while after, but it's only at the halfway point that the book seems to take off for readers. Their interest jumps there and is enthusiastically maintained all the way to the finish. At least, that's what I hear.

I grok what my readers are telling me: the pace is too slow between the opening and the mid-point. I suspect this means I need to cut, cut, cut -- something I've done little of in my short writing career. At least, I think that's the problem. It also could be that I need to insert a new, exciting element in the early portion of the book. I'll know when I read and re-edit it a couple of weeks from now (after all the readers are done).

The short version is that I think the story needs to pass through the character-building sections more swiftly. I can fix that. Once readers have pointed a problem out to me, it's a simple matter to jump in and fix it. Without my readers I don't know what I'd do. Readers are invaluable, and I thank mine here and always.

Back to the Big Boys. I'd like to edit either DK's or SK's books if I had the time. There is too much there, and that's a fact. Under it all, they're fabulously imaginative, of course, and I admire both men. Each have written gems. But these days, if they used less padding in their books I think we'd find it easier to dig our way down to the good stuff.

On the other end of the spectrum, of course, are novels that deliver a tremendous impact without using 1,000 pages. Though I'm sure many would disagree with me, I find Whitley Strieber's "The Hunger" to be a nearly perfect book: precise, compact and elegant. Another is "Sliver" by Ira Levin, a slim book about an improbably thin building, told in the most spare language imaginable. "Rosemary's Baby" is in the same class. Less is more.

What do you think? Any other writers you'd like to put on a diet?