"Personal" question(s) to John Jarrold

[gojiro]

Hi. I've been reading this thread for a while and have appreciated the advice I've found here. My book is near completion, is short (70,000) and fast paced. There is definately room for a series out of it. Is this something that publishers/agents find attractive in a first novel?

 

[Troo]

It's attractive if you've planned it as part of a series, and can show where the series is going from there.

It's not attractive at 70,000 words, unless it's YA or you're taking it to the independent presses.

 

[John Jarrold]

Hi. I've been reading this thread for a while and have appreciated the advice I've found here. My book is near completion, is short (70,000) and fast paced. There is definately room for a series out of it. Is this something that publishers/agents find attractive in a first novel?

You should have seen it mentioned on the forum that, in general terms, 100,000 words is the short end of the market in 2008 - longer, if you are writing fantasy rather than SF.

 

[gojiro]

Cheers for that Troo and John. I suppose i was hoping that 70,000 would be acceptable as in Marie Darrieussecq's Pig Tales. On reflection that was published some time ago. It's not a problem, there are elements i can incorporate that i have cut during editing. I'm a Sci Fi writer along the lines of Cory Doctorow, MD and Boris Vian. Thank you for your time.

 

[John Jarrold]

Yes, a new novelist always has to bear comparison with authors in the same genre who have come to prominence in the last five years or so, rather than in the longer term. Those are the comparisons publishers' sales directors have to make, when pitching a new writer to the book-selling chains.

 

[gojiro]

Fair enough - I can see that getting value for money is important. I was only going to send out to agents. Time to look at smaller publishers. It definately isn't YA unless that includes 20 year-olds. Cheers

 

[anthorn]

If you have 400 Pages of manuscript done in standard form and standard typeset. When made into a official book, does that change and go up in the number of pages. Or does the editor change the font to round it up to the nearest 10

 

[Doctor Sax]

I seriously wouldn't worry about that if I were you, unless you've got a specific interest in typesetting and printing. If you're a writer, your job is to write.

 

[John Jarrold]

As the Good Doctor says, don't concern yourself with that. Write the book, it'll be set as the publisher wants and the page count will be completely different from the typescript.

 

[dustinzgirl]

Hey John, do you think there is still a market for short novellas in fiction fantasty sci fi whatever, especially geared towards young adults? Or has long high fantasy killed the little fantasies?

 

[John Jarrold]

The only market is in the magazines and occasionally in small presses. No one in mainstream book publishing is interested in anything less than a full-length novel, at the lengths I've mentioned before, I'm afraid. Epic fantasy has been the bestselling area of the genre for thirty years now.

As a book publisher, I couldn't have looked at a novella in the late 1980s, let alone now.

 

[dustinzgirl]

The only market is in the magazines and occasionally in small presses. No one in mainstream book publishing is interested in anything less than a full-length novel, at the lengths I've mentioned before, I'm afraid. Epic fantasy has been the bestselling area of the genre for thirty years now.

As a book publisher, I couldn't have looked at a novella in the late 1980s, let alone now.

Well thats just lame. I'm going to win the lottery and publish just novellas, because long books are getting too fracking long.

 

[BookStop]

Well thats just lame. I'm going to win the lottery and publish just novellas, because long books are getting too fracking long.

Hear, hear.

I have aproblem at times staying within the word limit of a short story appropriate for a mag, and often the tale will naturally be novella length.

Doesn't anyone jsut want to sit for an hour sometimes and enjoy an entire story?

 

[Ursa major]

Charles Stross had two novellas (The Atrocity Archives and The Concrete Jungle) published in the same volume, which took the name of the first. When I bought it, I did so thinking it was a (shortish) novel and I guess it helped that one novella led directly into the next.

Was Stross was able to do this becuase he was a known quantity as a novellist (as well as, of course, the quality of his writing and imagination)?

 

[scalem X]

Bookstop, I imagine many magazines will feel very good about publishing a novella in different issues of their magazines. As long as you stay around 30000 or so they can split it up in 2*15000 or 3*10000.

 

[Ian Whates]

Charles Stross had two novellas (The Atrocity Archives and The Concrete Jungle) published in the same volume, which took the name of the first. When I bought it, I did so thinking it was a (shortish) novel and I guess it helped that one novella led directly into the next.

Was Stross was able to do this becuase he was a known quantity as a novellist (as well as, of course, the quality of his writing and imagination)?

I suspect so, Ursa. Charlie is something of a special case. His latest novel, Halting State, narrowly missed the New York Times best seller list (a fact that took Charlie himself completely by surprise). When you're selling books in that sort of quantity and appearing regularly on the Hugo shortlists, you can get away with things that the rest of us mere mortals can't.

 

[Ursa major]

I guess so, Ian - and even in this special case, the book's cover had to suggest a single story, which goes to reinforce what John said earlier about the market.


(May I admit here that I would probably not have bought the book if it had been presented as two stories; in this case, I'm glad I was "fooled"**.)


** - Not difficult to do in my case, it seems, as the Contents page gives the game away. o)

 

[John Jarrold]

Charles Stross had two novellas (The Atrocity Archives and The Concrete Jungle) published in the same volume, which took the name of the first. When I bought it, I did so thinking it was a (shortish) novel and I guess it helped that one novella led directly into the next.

Was Stross was able to do this becuase he was a known quantity as a novellist (as well as, of course, the quality of his writing and imagination)?

Yes. If he'd been otherwise unpublished, Orbit wouldn't have been able to do this.

 

[John Jarrold]

Well thats just lame. I'm going to win the lottery and publish just novellas, because long books are getting too fracking long.

The market works for long books, not short books, and publishers aren't going to publish in areas they can't sell to the book chains. That would be an easy way of losing money!


Bookstop: I'm sure some people do want to finish a story in one hour, but not enough of them buy books. That's why story collections and anthologies are not published in the numbers they were thirty years ago - mainstream public taste changed, and mainstream publishers follow what the public will buy in sufficient quantities to make it commercially viable. Again: It's a business.

Most novellas and story collections come from small presses now.

 

[Figures]

I'm about to get involved in putting together an anthology of works by the members of my mainstream writer's circle, and have a couple of questions.

1) A couple of our writers have had books published, and I'd like to suggest they write standalone stories featuring the worlds and characters from their novels as a way to promote their books within the anthology (I'm going to push for a short 1 paragrapgh author bio with every story). Is there likely to be any issues with their publishers with them doing this? I suspect not providing they are new stories and not novel extracts, but wanted to check

2) A lot of the publishing industry seems to put a lot of emphasis on published work in which the author was actually paid (presumably to separate professional work from pure vanity publishing). We're lucky that all our writer's in the circle can actually write to varying degrees (some better than others, but all can write), but even so it's already been said that only pieces up to an acceptable standard will be included. Unfortunately a lot of writer's circle anthologies are seen as pure vanity publications. So I'm wondering whether paying those whose submissions are accepted a token payment would help our writers (as they could then say that yes, they've been paid for their work)

3) I've got a funny feeling I could end up doing a lot of the work on this anthology, so I was wondering whether there were any pitfalls to avoid / words of wisdom (either from you John or other people who've done such work). It'll be mixed genre, have a common (though yet undecided) theme, contain both prose and poetry, and be used to promote both the writer's circle and its writers.