Season 2 Episode 5

On the Length of Manuscripts, Logline Tips and On How Much of Author/Agent Submissions Get Read

This week is all about the submission and review process. First, a panel on manuscript lengths with author/TRF editorial associate  Amanda Sun and columnist, author and Dundurn Press editor, Russell Smith, moderated by TRF's own Kathryn Willms. Newly-minted agent Jennifer Chevais gives her tips on crafting a logline for your project, and in our final panel convo for the season, agent Stacey Kondla, author Kalena Miller and former Wise Wolf Publisher Rachel Del Grosso discuss how far into a submission one reads, moderated by Sam Hiyate.

To listen (and please review/rate us!): Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, iHeartRadio.

Here’s a transcript of the first panel. Enjoy and see you again soon!

Kathryn Willms (01:29):

Hello, I'm Kathryn Willms and I'm an associate agent at The Rights Factory, and I'm really excited about today's panel. Today we convene to answer Cosmo magazine's favorite question: Does size matter? By which of course we mean book length. Word count is the topic of many conversations in this industry between various combinations of agents, editors, writers, sales teams, and readers. And it's no surprise that recently it was a topic of discussion on Twitter and by discussion of course, I mean a low-key politely curious conversation. No, of course not. People had thought -- as do I -- this is a topic of which I have a lot of strongly held opinions that completely contradict each other. So I'm so pleased we have an excellent and multi-qualified panel to weigh in on what's the deal with word count. And what does our preoccupation with it say about our industry? Russell Smith is a novelist, a freelance journalist and cultural commentator, and a former Globe columnist and CBC radio host. He is now an acquiring editor of fiction and nonfiction at Dundurn Press. Hello Russell.

Russell Smith (02:33):

Hi.

Kathryn Willms (02:34):

Amanda Sun is an author repped by Jabberwocky. She previously worked at Harlequin and now we're thrilled to have her on board as a TRF editorial associate. Welcome Amanda.

Amanda Sun (02:45):

Hi, great to be here.

Kathryn Willms (02:46):

So first let's get a quick on the ground report from a Twitter follower who stayed abreast of this whole conversation. Amanda, can you tell us what happened?

Amanda Sun (02:55):

Absolutely. So as often happens, Twitter was alight with some discussion this past week, over of all things word count. It all started when an editor commented on how heartbreaking it is to receive a stellar submission that doesn't fall within the conventional word count, implying that on the basis of word count alone, it must be rejected. Some of Twitter was quick to object, saying a beautiful moving work should be beyond a specified word count, citing classics such as The Great Gatsby, which at 47,000 words comes in far under the conventional adult fiction range of 80 to a hundred thousand now. Others defended the word count ranges, saying after all this is a business and publishers need to not only afford to print the books, but produce works that readers will recognize and purchase. There are many hot takes, and I'm excited to hear what this panel thinks about this topic.

Kathryn Willms (03:41):

Awesome. Thanks Amanda. So Russell, let's start with you. Where do you fall on this issue? How much does word count factor into your interest in a project?

Russell Smith (03:50):

Well, first of all, I was completely unaware that it was an issue. I'm not on Twitter. I didn't know about this. The numbers that are being thrown around in that discussion, frankly, are completely foreign to my experience as an acquiring editor, and I'll go into detail about the numbers in a minute. But before I do let me just say that I think it's really interesting to point out thatthe original editor who posted the comments that were controversial on Twitter, who was saying she would only look at books that were, I think, between 80 and a hundred thousand words long -- which are numbers far longer than I would normally toss around actually -- that she's working, I looked her up, she's working entirely in genre fiction. So she's talking about romance, mystery, fantasy horror and science fiction and all the various combinations of those, where word length seems to be a part of the genre. And in literary fiction, we don't have such strict regulations at all.

Kathryn Willms (05:02):

So Russell, I think that's a really interesting point. Amanda, as a writer where does word count come into your writing process and is it affected by the genre in which you write?

Amanda Sun (05:15):

Well you see, I hadn't really thought about that because I am a genre writer and also YA writer and word count is really crucial. I find that it's part of learning the process as you are wanting to be published, and you have to learn all the different conventions that you have to follow. There's, you knowreaching out to an agent -- they're not going to look at your project if it's 150,000 as a debut writer. And it's part of learning the ropes of what's expected of you and starting that separation from art as a project versus for itself or art that you want to then publish as a business. And so it's part of that sort of learned convention for me. It's also a very helpful guidepost to me when I'm writing, because you can sort of look at the word count, say, okay, I should be at this story beat. Now I should be wrapping things up here. And, so it can actually be a very useful tool. But I think it really says a lot about, do you understandthe conventions of the genre by the word count that you're submitting to your editor or to your agent,

Russell Smith (06:18):

Which is really very much what I'm saying, because the word conventions there is crucial. Genre depends on conventions. And so if you're trying to not worry about conventions -- or even to exclude them entirely then some of those considerations about word count, fall by the wayside. Do want to get into some nitty gritty? Like can we actually talk about numbers here?

Kathryn Willms (06:45):

Go ahead.

Russell Smith (06:46):

Okay. So, the editor who first started this conversation going, talking on Twitter said, oh, she's also disappointed when she gets books coming between 50 and 70,000 words long. She's talking novels, this is fiction we're talking about. Because they're too short. That made my eyes bug out of my head because we are really for literary fiction in particular, I am actually actively looking for around the 60,000-word length and I would go as low as about 45. 45 is about our cutoff for how short it could be, which is a novella-length there. It would be hard for me to push past the accountant at my publishing house. A book that's so short, 45,000, because their conventional views that say that, people aren't going to be willing to shell out for a short book, because we have to charge almost as much for it as we do for a longer book and people are gonna feel that they're,ripped off. But I could make the case that it's a powerful work of literature.

Russell Smith (07:50):

It needs to be published and literary people will buy it regardless of the price -- and I can usually get that through. We're talking now though about publishing even shorter books as an experiment you know, in order in Ontario for an Ontario publisher to get the Ontario tax credit, which we need to publish a booka book needs to be 48 pages long. And so technically it's possible. We're actually thinking about doing it. The editor who started this ball rolling said, Oh, she's looking for works that are up over a hundred thousand. My heart sinks, when I get a submission that's over a hundred thousand words for fiction in particularly, biographies and journalistic nonfiction are a different question because they have to go into depth on subjects and they can be long. And honestly we're just about to publish a 700 page biography -- that's a work of scholarship, so it has to be that long. But for work of fiction literary fiction, if it's something well over a hundred thousand words long, I'm immediately suspicious that there are bits in it that are repetitive and I'd be looking to cut them out. I'm skeptical before I even start.

Kathryn Willms (09:04):

Right. And so would you call literary fiction a genre of its own, with its own conventions?

Russell Smith (09:10):

No, I wouldn't. I would distinguish between literature and genre fiction because the very thing about genre fiction is it relies on as Amanda said, convention. So it relies on certain tropes and certain expectations which must be met andthe very -- and that's what defines all genre. And I would say that what defines literary fiction is that it does not belong to a genre.

Kathryn Willms (09:34):

Yeah. So I think from an agent perspective, you know, I think in some ways I'm in between these two worlds a little bit, because, and so I'm signing a wide variety. I have authors, you know, that I've only ever seen three chapters of their work. I have authors who -- I have one author who's doubled the normal, conventional size of a manuscript that I've taken on. I have authors who are potential authors. They have not yet actually written anything that I'm, you know, sort of aligning myself with. Because I think they should write a book. So obviously it doesn't determine the acquisitions, but it's something I'm very conscious of when it comes to submissions to places like Dundurn and other places. I just don't want to put editors in position where they're going to say no.

Kathryn Willms (10:14):

And I think a thing that I think we're agreeing on, Russell, is I'm also like if, if they're outside of sort of any sort of conventional word count, I want it to be a selling feature of the book, not a problem that you have to overlook. I want to be like, Look, it's 561,000 words and it's called War and Peace. And like, for it to live up to the billing, right? Like that's the -- you know -- that's a pitchOr a very similar thing you could do for, you know, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which did you know at 257,000 words, is longer than Moby Dick. So I did do my half-ass Internet research for this podcast. But the point is, I'm just going to say that, you know, for most project, you're not gonna do that. And I do think there's a lot of good reasons for that. Some of which you've already alluded to Russell. So I guess maybe the next question I have, you know, are word count preferences intrinsic or extrinsic? Is it a question of outside forces like genre conventions, paper costs, production ramifications, or is it more of a personal preference or tied to the specific story? What do you think, Amanda?

Amanda Sun (11:22):

Well, first I'd like to go back to what you said about Harry Potter -- the length of the word count there. That again is an established author starting to get away with more and more with each book and the same with The Song of Ice and Fire. They get progressively longer because the audience is trusting, the people want the long book, they've proven themselves. It's the same idea as when you're -- you have to learn how to write first, and then you can break the rules. You have to prove that you know how to write first,within the established word count, I think, before you can start breaking the word count rules. And I think it's really true when it comes to acquisitions,or trying to find an agent. A lot of agents are going to dismiss you if you have a word count outside what's expected.

Amanda Sun (12:06):

And there's two reasons for that. One, they're going to think that you haven't learned what is expected of the genre. And the second is they're going to think maybe you don't know how to kill your darlings and cut down to what is really, truly deserving to be in the story. And so that's going to cause a little bit of apprehension. Oh, is this writer somewhere in their writing path where I can work with them yet? So I think there is that sort of built in bias at first and you're saying, Well, I don't wanna miss anything, but there are a lot of automatic rejections that are happening just right off the word count.

Russell Smith (12:37):

Well, yeah, I think Amanda is absolutely right, that if someone is a very established author I'm going to look at something of any word count. Somebody is an unpublished author I've never read before and they submit a 500,000 word manuscript, it's kind of a non-starter because the costs in printing that, would be so great that the risk, the financial risk, would be too great. And if the writer hasn't proven him or herself, then the risk is -- we just can't take it. So for me, yes, only with really really long books would I automatically dismiss something like that.

Kathryn Willms (13:10):

I did some math for this podcast andfor, Atlas Shrugged is 562,000 words. So for a regular copyedit 1200 words per hour, at $40 an hour, it would take an editor 468 hours and they would charge $19,000 dollars for it. And I think that that is for one tiny bit of process. And I just think that sometimes authors are not always aware, like there's a sunk cost. It's like Bitcoin. Like it shouldn't be the primary issue, but it really does in fact becomes untenable at some point.

Russell Smith (13:45):

I know an author who complains that editors always want him to write much longer than he likes to write. And I think we should tolerate the short, particularly in literary fiction, much more.

Amanda Sun (13:58):

It's funny because that does happen to me in mine. I tend to turn in a shorter first draft and I do sometimes get a little bit of prejudice, saying, Oh, well, this isn't long enough for a fantasy. But part of my editing process is adding in that extra 20,000 or 30,000 words and seeing where I need to add more story. And I, for my writing, it works a lot better than having to cut large portions of writing. So I think everyone is different in that case.

Kathryn Willms (14:22):

Yeah, I think I would definitely agree. You know, I think as an editor or as an agent often, you know, almost anything will benefit from cutting and just crystallizes the ideas and you end up most often with a better work of art. So maybe you just quickly -- do you wish word count didn't matter? Any thoughts on that?

Russell Smith (14:43):

I wish all economic considerations didn't matter.

Kathryn Willms (14:46):

There you go.

Russell Smith (14:47):

But unfortunately they do.

Amanda Sun (14:49):

I think it's disingenuous to write a story to a certain word count just to fit in. It has to matter to the story at the end of the day and your readers will know if you're just adding things for the sake of adding or taking away and not telling the whole story. It has to come across as genuine, but of course there's also, you know, no reason that you can't genuinely write within the word count.

Kathryn Willms (15:10):

Thank you so much, everyone. It was a pleasure to discuss book size with you all.

Amanda Sun (15:16):

Thank you.

Russell Smith (15:16):

Thank you.

Kathryn Willms (15:17):

Thank you so much. That was Russell Smith, acquiring editor at Dundurn Press and Amanda Sun, author of the Paper God series.