Episode 38: Book Length
K
Hello, my beautiful cinnabar moths or any kind of moth you’d like to be welcome to the writers triangle, a podcast on all things publishing and books. And today we’re going to be talking about just writing in, in general. And I want to talk a little bit about writing length. And what you’ll find if you search on the internet, versus what we practice at cinnabar moth publishing in cinnabar. Moth literary collections, because I find that the gap in between those two things to be really interesting. And I think a big reason for that is because when you’re doing like a listicle, or I’m going to tell you everything about, you know, writing length, and or I’m gonna tell you everything about this specific type of writing, it really means to be generalizable, broad based, and you know, clickbait basically to get you to click and follow and use those as your guidelines. And if I were a writer, I think that what I would do is I would focus on specific presses or specific themes, ezines, or magazines that I wanted to be published in, or specific websites that I wanted to be published on. Because each of us have our own criteria and our own perspectives, and our own numbers within the broader numbers of what the domain says, right? What the ethos is about publishing, even the big five and all of their now the big four, and all of their subsidiaries have this because you have a sort of standard way of doing things because we’re creating something called reader expectation. And I feel like picking who you want your audience to be, and not fixating on on one specific one, but maybe having five or six that you know, you’re going to go to, and you know that you’re going to do this, this thing for and with that it really will help give your writing, form and structure and boundaries. And that can also feel really constraining. So if you don’t like being constrained, if you like running free, and being Footloose, and Fancy Free, don’t do this, right? Because it’s about getting worse on the page. Ultimately, no matter what you’re writing, no matter what form you’re writing, no matter what length you’re writing, you have to write something right to be able to turn it in. So I don’t think that any of these rules are are steadfast and I’m speaking from the vantage points of one press and one easing, and I am thirsty. Sorry if you can hear me drink this. Today, I guess woke up feeling so parched. I think the pollen counts are really high in Nagoya. So I’m in Nagoya, Japan. I don’t know if I’ve ever said that. But I think most folks that are that listen to us regularly know that I’m in Japan. I digress. Sorry about that. So getting back to CES length and and forms of writing. What have you thinking about this was the flash fiction contest I announced a couple of weeks ago and that we’re running on Twitter. For the finish the story we announced our first winners and the flash fiction stories were shorter than what if then what if you do it online, you’ll find that most fast fiction guidelines will save somewhere around 50 words to 1000 words is considered flash fiction. And we have stories that are I think the shortest one was like 25 words or something that we received and accept. And so I don’t have a steadfast idea of what the minimum word count for a flash fiction pieces. But for me, the maximum word count is about 1000. So I look at the upper range. And for cinnabar, moth, Leary collections and our flash fiction contest, it would definitely be 1000 words or less. And that would qualify because you can enter the flash fiction by hitting us up at looking at our cinnabar moth publishing website and hitting us up at media or any of the myriad of emails that are listed on our website and submit your flash fiction piece that way provided that you use the finish the story prompt, or by just going on Twitter and finishing, you know responding to the prompt on Twitter and that’s it you’ve submitted.
K
Having it be open and having a B is primarily a Twitter contest, and having a via Twitter writing contest that really limits it and you can’t write 1000 words on Twitter. You have those 250 characters I’m so working with them that I just really liked the idea of it. And I like, for me, I guess the spirit of flash fiction is something, you can sit down and write in a flash. And that may be corny and hokey. But that’s how I think of it. And I think writing something that has between 20 and 50 words, I think the most people can sit down and write something that long in an instant, based off a prompt. And there’s a lot of different writing prompts on on Twitter that I think are amazing, and fun and wonderful. And I just want to take a step further and celebrate all of those artists and writers that are that are turning off these great stories by giving them a little bit of cash and putting them in the E zine. And that’s what got me thinking about when I look online, versus how the press actually functions, and how the easing actually functions. It’s not a straight progression, right? Because if you google you have a flash fiction pieces between 50 and 1000 words, but then a short story pieces between 3007 1000 words. So what happens to the pieces that are between 1003 1000 words? What are those pieces? And for me, I think that we can bump up not floss friction. I didn’t say anything between 2500 words, anything between three words and 2500 words, or even I guess the shorter sentences, one word? Or two words? I can’t remember, I’d have to look that up. I haven’t. So this Why don’t edit. But if we say that the shortest sentence is a single word, then I would say, to have everything roll into each other seamlessly and make sense, I would say that anything from a single word to take 1500 words, give or take a few words, is flash fiction. And anything from 2500 to 7000 words, is a short story, for us are specific short stories are between 3003 1500 words is what I like, I just bought a story the other day, I think just yesterday. That is 20. I think it’s 2500 words. And it was just a really great story. And I was about to put out an open call for it. For the story that I needed, because I had was looking at the the E zine and getting everything ready to round up the year for the E zine. And I noticed I was a story short, and one of the categories for one of the months, and I was going to put out a call and the call would have been 3000 to 3500. But I knew the author who’s submitted the work, they hit me up right when I was thinking about it, I read the story, it felt complete. And I thought right on, you know, I’ll go ahead and buy it and then publish it. So that shows if you build a relationship with the press, or zine that you can get away with those kinds of things, right, you can get away with not putting that extra 500 words on a story and still get it published. And I adored the author, I just have a really great relationship with them. They have an amazing book that they wrote that I absolutely love. I’m a huge fan of, and they submitted it to us, but it was the word count was was high for for what we publish, but they submitted it to us when it wasn’t quite finished when I was about halfway done. And I was working with them to to read the entire thing and and reading it as as they were writing it and as they finished it. And is this a really, really great book just too long for us. And they they published it with another press and I celebrated their their publication. And this goes back to what I was saying before you know if you develop these relationships in the industry, they will benefit you beyond that press publishing you guys I’ve retweeted you know their celebration. And I’ve reviewed their book and given it a you know, great review because I thought it was a great book. And then here they had this, this short, short story that you know they were looking for a home for and because they’re known to me, it was a transgressive piece and it just really fit in with the other stories that are all trans is a really transgressive easing issue that I don’t usually publish on a transgressive I do a lot of horror and such, but it just felt so right.
K
And it found a home and it clicked and it was Kismet and the timing was great. So even in these hard fast things right of saying You know, two words to 2500 words is flash fiction, you can see that there’s that little bit of wiggle room, I think at 2000, I would ask for more words, I don’t think I would want to publish something 2000 In the evening, but we do publish flash fiction now. And that’s something that was just born out of all of these really great stories. So I was that I was reading online, and I evolved. And it was based on my relationship with authors that caused me to move a little as a press. And I think that that’s a beautiful thing. And I think that’s one of the advantages of being a small press. And being one of the owners of the press, and being on social media is that I am actually developing relationships with authors, and actually developing relationships with the people who we follow online and who follow the process online. And I am always looking at their timelines, and looking at their art, and falling in love with pieces of it, and saying, hey, you know, I really dig this piece, can we can we put it in the easing? And I’m lucky, everybody says, yes. I think it’d be devastating the first time someone says no, but I completely get it. We’re not the perfect fit for everyone. And just like authors, the press, you know, is on that query, query, Brian, where we reach out to people and ask them for things and sometimes they say yes, sometimes they say no kind of thing. So that is my take on on flash fiction. And you see, that is actually a lot more fluid than saying these words are absolute. Because not the truth of it. I think when it comes to short stories, I am a bit more fixed in my ideas of short story for me 3000 to 3500 words is the perfect short story length. That’s down to my personal preference, when I’m reading a short story, the length that I like a short story to be, that’s what I enjoy reading. And because I am the person who makes the final decision for all works that go into the E zine, that I’ve picked the 3030 500 words specifically for the short story, because that impacts how long the the zine is going to be not a pat that impacts what the zine is going to look like what the fill of reading it’s going to be, and also how much advertising space we have based on the page length. And I’m very selective about the outside, things that are not related to the press that we advertise. And we have a couple of we’re very fortunate, and that we have an advertising a mutual advertising agreement with a couple of pretty sizable things. And so those get in, and we also have a sponsorship and their ad kits and and then it really is about the integrity of the company, when we’re looking at who will advertise with us when it comes to advertising in the E zine. I really am particular that way. But the advertising affects the length of the short stories. And I’m just being transparent here because I think transparency is good. And I think talking about the real of things is good to let authors and to demystify it. And I wish more presses would be fully transparent in their process and their motivations. Because authors are thirsty for knowledge. How does this thing work? How does publishing work? And I don’t think that they should be left in the dark alone to figure it out. It’s so frustrating, frustrating to query and have pieces rejected without ever knowing why or worse not knowing if your piece is then rejected or accepted for you know, six months to a year that’s wild to me.
K
So I’m fast on the trigger. I usually let people know within a month, I think is the longest I’ve ever had to go back and forth and like really think about things and not to find considering a lot of pieces. These shine know right away. If it’s a no it’s a quick No. And if it’s a yes, it might take a little bit longer for a yes, because I might be looking for a home for it. Our submissions are closed right now unfortunately, it’s up for anything that like flash fiction and this is I’m recording this in June of 2022. So I’m only saying that because I don’t want someone to hear this looking at our back issues and being like hey, wait a minute if our subs are open hi thing. So the short stories are really complex and the length is really started the length of my preference for short stories starting with how long do I want the easing to be and the easiness free. So if you haven’t checked it out Please go to cinnabar moth, Lurie, collections.com. And check out the easing, it’s free, and it’s entertaining. And if you don’t like it, you can stop reading it. But if you do like it, read the whole thing, I love it. And it’s doing really well, I’m really proud about that we get between 20 and 25,000 readers a month, which is awesome for an easiness, not even six months old. And it just really humbling. And it tells me that I hit the nail on the head, right with the length and the amount of of advertising which is very minimal and limited. And the quality of the stories were so lucky to have the relationship with these authors, a lot of these authors that we publish, and celebrate, we either met on Twitter, or we met when we did our Anthology. Last year in December of 2021, we had we published an anthology, and those relationships have stayed with us with us publishing books for a lot of the authors from the anthology, and US publishing short stories in the easing from a lot of the authors that were in the anthology. And we also publish a lot of short stories from our authors that we have booked deals with. So with the short stories being, you know, between 3030 500 words, it keeps everything nice and tidy for us and comfortable. The industry standard, speaking generally is 3500 to 7500 words is a basic, short story. And if you’re going to do an anthology for yourself, and you’re looking to put together an anthology, I think that’s a good rule of thumb, to have your stories be about the same length, or maybe and maybe sprinkle in some, they’re a little bit shorter, a little bit longer. But start with how long you want it to be. Are you doing an anthology? That’s also a novelette? Are you doing an anthology that’s also a novella? Or are you doing an anthology that you want to publish as a novel. And if you’re doing an anthology that you want to publish as a novelette? One long story, one long short story counts as a novelette. Because this is where you start to see the numbers start to roll into each other. Where a novelette is, is about 77, not 77, sorry, 7500 to 17,000 words, or 18,000, weren’t there abouts. In the industry. We don’t publish novelettes right now. And it’s basically because we’re still really focused on publishing novels and doing that seamlessly. And getting our system down for that, because we are a very young press, we haven’t even been open for for two years. And our first, our first novel that we released, just had his first birthday in February. So we’re still focusing on novels at this time, and how to do novels, right, and how to do novels well and and do everything in that, and how that goes smoothly. So we’re not doing novelist, I don’t know that we’ll never publish a novel that I don’t want to say that. Because I don’t want to limit myself, I have to see where it goes. I just know right now I’m really focused on on novels and the reason of focus that I started the reason to publish a novelette. If you have a story that fits in those blanks that feels complete to you, that feels finished to you, that you don’t have any other stories to go with. I think self publishing a novel ad or putting a novelette into something like Kindle Unlimited, where you get paid per clicks, or any of the other systems where you get paid per page for reading. I think that’s a really good option for these types of stories. to just get that out there, get your name out there.
K
Because if you do a novelette, right, and you put it on a platform, you’re able to then go into something a system like Goodreads or Amazon or Smashwords and also establish yourself as an author and claim those books. And then launch your authors website. You have this book, you have this novelette out. You can use that as the cornerstone to build your your website around and build your social media presence around. So I think novelettes are great. I love reading them. I really do enjoy them. I think they’re fun. I think they’re interesting. Nonetheless, usually or the at least the novel that I read are usually quick little fun horror stories, and they’re kind of horror comedies. Or I think like romantic comedies I don’t really read Romantic comedy a lot. That’s not, I think it’s a great genre, and I don’t have anything against them, we publish a really fun and awesome romantic comedy. greystones just have the dream. And it’s just really fun all the way around. It’s just not what I read the most, I tend to be really drawn to horror and have an affinity for horror. So that’s why I read horror novel. That’s not saying any other novel that is better or worse kind of thing. But if you have the story that’s, you know, 77,500 words or, you know, 17 to 18,000 words, and you can’t find a home for it. I think that’s a great option for self publishing. I like I think it’s a great first bit of writing out there to get your brand noticed and start building your author brand. Looking at novelettes and novellas, we see this this fold into where novellas are between, you know, 17,050 1000 words for me from my my vantage point, I know that if you look online, you might find a little lower number for the start a lower number for the end. But for my perspective, a novella is anything between 17,050 1000 words, and we are coming out with one novella, and I believe we’re coming out with it next year, Icarus over Collins and it’s a bilingual novella, an English and Spanish intermix drop the story. And I think what drew me to it, even though we don’t normally it’s the only novella, we’re we’re publishing, we might be coming out with another one. Not going to talk too much about facts. I don’t want to publish pressure the author, but I really hope not. They write it, I really do. I like novellas they’re not. They’re not as intense as reading a novel. But in a way, I feel like they’re kind of more intense, the stories feel a bit more concentrated to me, then a novel and some things aren’t as fleshed out, as we see with with novels. I think that novellas are great for experimental writing processes and experimental types of writings. And I really enjoy them. They’re not our mainstay. As a rule, we don’t really publish novellas and the two novellas that we are publishing. Well, the one that for sure, we’re publishing and the second that we might be publishing really came about, again, because we need the author’s from the anthology. And when the when the one that worked for certain publishing acres over Collins, I really enjoy the author. And I really enjoyed the story when I read it. And because I knew them and enjoyed the work, I did take the time to read it to make a decision. And I really just fell in love with the story.
K
I thought the idea was really cool. I thought the story was something I wanted to publish, I really, really support normalizing language switching, because I do, I want a world that embraces the fact that we all speak different languages, and embraces the fact that the majority of the world is bilingual, and the majority of the world does engage in language switching. It’s a very small part of the world’s population. That is monolingual. So I’d like them the message of that. And I like the feel of that, which is why we published that novella. And the second novella that we may or may not publish based on whether or not the author writes it, is because we’re, we have a series with them. We’re publishing a series of their books. And this is just a nice little side story. That doesn’t it’s not quite fully a novel, but it fits in and it’s a companion piece. And the concept of it when they thought about it, and they pitched me what the concept would be for it just really drew me in. So our novellas are based on our relationships with our authors, and they are, they are around 40 to 50 or 60,000 words and in length. So that’s my take on on novellas and I also think that novellas are are awesome for self publishing and perfectly made for that in the same way that novelettes are. And again, it allows you to establish yourself as an author gaining a following as an author, get your work reviewed, get your work out there and have people know about it. The final thing I’m going to talk about is novel length. And novels, you know, pick right up right off from where the the novellas are between, in the grand scheme of things that they’re between around, want to stay around 35 to 40,000 is the lower end For like middle grade, and goes, you know, onwards and upwards to, I feel ridiculous word counts. So our novels are between 70 and 80,000 words, I think we have one that might be a little bit longer than that. And the reason that we have our novels be between 770 and 8000 words 75,000 is a sweet spot, is because again, that’s what I like to read. So it’s down to because I have to read the book to determine whether or not we publish it. That’s what I want to commit to reading. That might seem selfish and wrong and mean, and might be frustrating for people to hear. But I think just the honesty, I hope the honesty is appreciated, that if someone sends me 100,000 words, I’m not reading it. If someone sends me 90,000 words, and I don’t know them, I’m not reading it. That’s just the reality. And I will send it back to them, let them know that this is our word, count this the word count that that we prefer. And they’re more than welcome to resubmit. Once they lower the word count. If I know them, there’s a little bit more wiggle room, a little bit more of a willingness to extend myself and give them extra effort because that personal relationship is there. And I genuinely champion authors and like authors, but I also have to champion myself and be true to who I am. Because I’m also the head of marketing. And if I think this book is too long, if I think it’s an uncomfortable read, not in a good way, just like I’m dreading all of these pages I have to read, that’s not the right energy to bring your book.
K
And I don’t think any author deserves that kind of energy when their their work is being read. I think every author deserves respect and openness to their art. If someone commits to reading the books, I’m very careful about what I commit to reading. And for me, 75,000 words, you know, give or take, if I know Yeah, kind of 80,000 words, if I don’t know you strictly 70 to 75,000 words, if it comes in under 75,000 words, a lot of people son want to send us middle grade, that’s at that 50,000 word count, which is acceptable and middle grade. And because I love reading middle grade as an adult, what I look at is okay, that feels too short to be a complete novel for me. And then we’re looking at really younger middle grade, in that space between picture book. First chapter book we’re looking at this book at, I feel like at 50,000 words, is where you’re getting into the longer chapter book is sort of that book after a really popular series that everyone might know is the magic treehouse. And the magic school bus, those two series are really good gateway books from picture book to chapter book. And right after they leave that behind, and they start reading, you know, like Judy Blume and those types of authors is where you hit that 50,000 word mark. And for me, our middle grade, the majority of our middle grade readers, the people who read our middle grade books that are out are adults. And I look at that, and I say, Okay, we need this to be at least 70,000 words. And if I know you and I feel really close to your and or you send me a story that I just absolutely love and filled needs to be out there, we can go as low as 65,000. But that makes me a little bit uncomfortable. And I would really prefer 70,000 I hope that in in talking about all of this that no one’s feeling despondent or let down or shut out. This is just informational, right? It’s just to let you know our process perspective, and let you know one person who’s reading books what my thought process is when I’m looking at at at word count, and I hope that this kind of gives you a toe into I don’t know, encouraged you to sort of dip your toe into into writing and and sitting down and being intentional with your writing and saying okay, this is what I’m gonna do or not being what’s comfortable for you. And like I said, this isn’t the end all be all this is one person’s opinion. And this is one presses opinions, I guess a group of people, but I set the opinion and everything is that personal every agent is thinks along similar lines but has their own word counts attached to everything I’ve said. And that’s why I advise and emphasize the personal relationship. because then you get to ask these types of questions and you get to find out what that person wants. And if you don’t have the personal relationship, you can just look at what they’re associated with. Right? If it’s an agent, what what have what do the other authors write that they represent? And if it’s depressed, what are they publishing, look at their books and see what they’re doing. And then ask yourself if you’re a good fit, and if so, chase down, pursue it. I just love authors. I know I say it every time on the mic, but it’s true. And I really am rooting for every author to get their art out there. I think there are enough eyes and enough readers for everyone. So that’s my whole long spiel and ramble about word count. I hope it was at least entertaining and a bit informational. And I thank everybody for listening this week. And yeah, that’s it. So thank you to all of our beautiful cinnabar moth for turning in or any kind of mock. You’d like to be or you can be a butterfly, but I’m not remote. I’m not Mariah Carey, trying to bite her rhyme by