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wildfoodie
Joined: 05 Apr 2005 Posts: 2169
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 46052 Location: yes
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wildfoodie
Joined: 05 Apr 2005 Posts: 2169
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sally_in_wales Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 20809 Location: sunny wales
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tim_and_nicky
Joined: 28 Nov 2008 Posts: 261 Location: Beautiful Galicia, NW Spain
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troyannick
Joined: 24 Dec 2011 Posts: 605
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sally_in_wales Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 20809 Location: sunny wales
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wishus
Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Posts: 777 Location: Northampton, East Midlands
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 12 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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I am an editor - mostly freelance copy-editing and proofreading, but I do some small press commissioning/substantive editing too...
So, I've seen a lot of new books!
My advice would be forget the market, forget trends, forget your favourite writers.
Work on finding your voice and the story you want to tell. Even non-fiction will have a narrative thread of sorts that pulls the whole thing together. You'll know it when you spot it.
Write your dream book. Take your time on it, get it right.
Do not show draft versions to the people who are closest to you. This can cause rows.
Select trustworthy beta readers if you will... but 'that's nice', and 'I enjoyed it', won't help to get it published.
Always rewrite.
Get a nice clean ms together that's relatively free of grammar errors, typos, spelling errors etc before you let any professional people see it.
You may want to pay someone to read/proofread it before it goes to a publisher/agent. |
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troyannick
Joined: 24 Dec 2011 Posts: 605
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Duckhead
Joined: 24 Oct 2009 Posts: 2069 Location: Up the hill, Italy
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 12 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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wishus wrote: |
I am an editor - mostly freelance copy-editing and proofreading, but I do some small press commissioning/substantive editing too...
So, I've seen a lot of new books!
My advice would be forget the market, forget trends, forget your favourite writers.
Work on finding your voice and the story you want to tell. Even non-fiction will have a narrative thread of sorts that pulls the whole thing together. You'll know it when you spot it.
Write your dream book. Take your time on it, get it right.
Do not show draft versions to the people who are closest to you. This can cause rows.
Select trustworthy beta readers if you will... but 'that's nice', and 'I enjoyed it', won't help to get it published.
Always rewrite.
Get a nice clean ms together that's relatively free of grammar errors, typos, spelling errors etc before you let any professional people see it.
You may want to pay someone to read/proofread it before it goes to a publisher/agent. |
That is good advice, thank you.
At the risk of sounding daft, how many words are in a book? I mean if I have a 150,000 wordcount in MS word, is that a slim thing? How many words are there in a 2" thick Robert Ludlum for example.
Thanks |
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tim_and_nicky
Joined: 28 Nov 2008 Posts: 261 Location: Beautiful Galicia, NW Spain
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wishus
Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Posts: 777 Location: Northampton, East Midlands
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Posted: Wed Jan 11, 12 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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tim_and_nicky wrote: |
Duckhead wrote: |
At the risk of sounding daft, how many words are in a book? I mean if I have a 150,000 wordcount in MS word, is that a slim thing? |
"Full length" would normally be 60,000 words plus, so 150,000 words is plenty.
Duckhead wrote: |
How many words are there in a 2" thick Robert Ludlum for example. |
Probably too many. ![](images/smiles/icon_confused.gif) |
Actually 40,000 is just a novella, so 60,000 is still quite tiny. A few years ago, 80,000 would have been just the right size, but this is considered a 'slim' book now. 120,000 is a good size. Your 150,000 may grow or shrink.... |
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vegplot
Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 21301 Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd
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wildfoodie
Joined: 05 Apr 2005 Posts: 2169
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Barefoot Andrew Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 22780 Location: In the 17th century
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