Publishing

[Aurora]

Hi, I'm new to this site and have loads of questions about publishing! Please help! Thanks!

1) Approximately how long should my novel be and what do you think is the best font size?

2) How thick would the book be if the number of words is 120,000-130,000

3) What is the limit number of words in books publishers are not willing to look into? (Will they shy away from a book with 120k words or will they think it's too little.)

4) Should I give them a false age? (I'm 14)

5) I want to do a sequel but
a) Must I have a time limit to complete it where publishers will come chasing after you day in and night for the manuscript?
b) Must I write an epilogue even though I feel that I may not be ready to write the second book?
c) No one in my country has ever published a book that made it to the shelves. Is it ambitious for me to do a sequel even though my publisher seems hesitant? (I have not sent the entire script to the publisher yet)

6) If my publisher has not responded, should I search for another one even though I'm unsure if my first publisher is either unavailable or rejecting my script?

7) If my book gets rejected, does it mean that it's terrible?

8) How far does distribution for young authors extend to? (Within district, within island or outside country)
Publisher website:
http://www.catherinekhoo.sg/flipbook.html

9) Who is involved in the entire publishing process? (I'm only in contact with the director of the company. Is there more people in charge?)

10) When asked to run through the script myself before sendin?g it in, does that mean no editors are provided?

11) Must you pay for the publishing services? If so, what does this mean in terms of the quality of the work?

[Shaun]

Hi, I'm new to this site and have loads of questions about publishing! Please help! Thanks!

Well, welcome! I hope to see you become an active member of the site! Hopefully I can help you on your questions. Please understand that I'm not an expert. I just read way too much for my own good and as such know quite a lot of things about the publishing industry. I've listened to a lot of author interviews as well and they often divulge important, useful information about this sort of thing. So here goes.

1) Approximately how long should my novel be and what do you think is the best font size?

This depends on a number of factors.
a) Which publisher you are wanting to submit to. Some publishers don't want works longer than 120,000 words, some do, and others don't want anything over 90,000 words, and still others prefer the small range of 50,000-60,000. You should consult the guidelines of the publisher you wish to submit to about this, because most publishers will tell you up front what they do and do not want.
b) Genre. There are exceptions to every rule, however for certain genres it is considered standard to be within certain word count ranges. Fantasy books typically are around 100,000-180,000 (most commonly between 110,000 and 150,000). Science fiction generally are around the 80,000 to 120,000 mark and rarely longer (more often they are around 90,000). Literary fiction have a tendency to be on the shorter side (50,000 to 75,000 words), though not always. Mainstream novels and most anything you see on your bestseller list (with the exception of fantasy and horror) are around 80,000 to 110,000 words, including romance. Thrillers are much the same as Mainstream, and Horror is about the same as Science Fiction, although typically no longer than 120,000 words (Stephen King being the exception there). These are more current measurements, though. It costs less per page for a 500 page novel than a 200 page novel, which is why it is more common to see 500 page novels rather than 200 page ones.
c) The rule is, technically speaking, that anything over 40,000 words (with a buffer of a few thousand additional words) is considered "of novel length", however this is a considerably old rule from back when 150 page novels were profitable. They aren't anymore. With novels being 7.99 USD on average it makes much more sense to publish a larger book than drop off several hundred pages to save the consumer a couple dollars. That's just the mass market paperbacks though. We're talking differences of 5-10 USD for hardbacks.

As for font size, what do you mean? Do you mean for when you submit your novel? Or for typing it up and distributing it to critters?
If you are talking about submitting the industry standard is to have it in Courier and double-spaced. Check also with the publishers you want to submit to, because they may have specific guidelines on this. For submitting to critters, it all depends on them. Generally they don't mind look at Times New Roman or some other standard font. The general rule here is to not use anything that may be difficult to read or too flashy. Your prose shouldn't require the use of pretty letters to make someone like it. The prose should speak for itself. The reason they use Courier in the publishing world is because it is a uni-spaced (or equally spaced) font, meaning that each letter typed takes up the exact amount of space on the page. Times New Roman is not one of these fonts. Uni-spaced fonts make it easier for the publisher to read them, because the letters aren't close together, and it is also better for the publisher to figure out how to translate your novel to the page appropriately, since they will know how long your novel will be when put in a book.

2) How thick would the book be if the number of words is 120,000-130,000

I don't know. This depends on how your book is going to be published. Will it be in standard hardback, trade paperback, or mass market paperback? What is the typeset (size, type, etc.)? By industry standard that would be about 480 to 520 pages. I can't be certain, but maybe two inches think. I can't be certain. This depends on too many factors for me to be sure. Just look at the books you have and get an estimate.

3) What is the limit number of words in books publishers are not willing to look into? (Will they shy away from a book with 120k words or will they think it's too little.)

Look at the guidelines of the publisher. Generally, no. 120K is really not that many words anymore.

4) Should I give them a false age? (I'm 14)

NEVER EVER lie to a publisher. EVER. This is the quickest way to get blacklisted. The publisher WILL find out that you are 14 and not the age you told them. They will. It's inevitable. If you lie to them they are very likely never to work with you again and you can be sure that if that publisher has any pull in the publishing world they will likely tell all their friends about you. Bad idea.

a) Must I have a time limit to complete it where publishers will come chasing after you day in and night for the manuscript?

You mean a deadline. If the original book is complete, why aren't you writing the sequel now? Or something else? If you have an idea for a sequel, don't worry about it at this point. Unless that book is finished you can't pitch it to a publisher anyway. If they take the first book they'll likely have you sign a contract which will state one of two things: they want the next book or they want first refusal (which means that they get to see your next book, whatever it is you write, before any other publisher and they want the right to refuse it if they don't want it...so you can't send that second book to anyone else without breaching that contract and ultimately damaging your reputation)

b) Must I write an epilogue even though I feel that I may not be ready to write the second book?

Why does your first book need an epilogue in the first place? Is it to give final closure to the first book or to open things up for a second book? You'd be best making your first book more of a standalone.

c) No one in my country has ever published a book that made it to the shelves. Is it ambitious for me to do a sequel even though my publisher seems hesitant? (I have not sent the entire script to the publisher yet)

What to me your publisher? Do you already have a contract with a publisher? Or are you seeking to get a publisher? What country are you from? It's never too ambitious to want to do something that plenty of others have done before. Just because you'd be the first to do it, if you do it, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do it.
If all you have right now is a query to a publisher, then you aren't published and you're not even close. Queries are the first step. If the publisher wants to see the rest of the manuscript they will ask and even then there's nothing to be excited about because that publisher may very well refuse it.

6) If my publisher has not responded, should I search for another one even though I'm unsure if my first publisher is either unavailable or rejecting my script?

How long has it been since you sent the manuscript?

7) If my book gets rejected, does it mean that it's terrible?

This really depends. You're 14. I would question why you are submitting a query for a novel at your age. Are you sure you are ready for it? Is your craft honed enough? It doesn't mean you are terrible, but if your manuscript is rejected at your age you might want to consider that you may not be ready. Very very very few people under the age of 21 have published novels. A handful of them in the last 50 years have been successful. At your age there's no such thing as actually terrible unless you really can't write (as in you don't know grammar or how to spell).

Never consider a rejection a notice that you suck. There are dozens of reasons that publishers reject manuscripts, such as:
--It's not right for them, i.e. they don't publish that sort of thing.
--It's not what they're looking for at that particular moment.
--It doesn't follow guidelines.
Etc. etc. etc.

8) How far does distribution for young authors extend to? (Within district, within island or outside country)
Publisher website:
http://www.catherinekhoo.sg/flipbook.html

I don't know where you are from, so I can't say for certain. In the U.S. it is not very common for new authors of any age to get distribution outside the U.S. beyond selling on Amazon, which is open worldwide. Generally you have to prove yourself to get international distribution.

9) Who is involved in the entire publishing process? (I'm only in contact with the director of the company. Is there more people in charge?)

Umm, I have no idea. Generally you never talk to the director of the company because he or she is very unlikely to have much influence on what is chosen for publication. Editors and Senior Editors are the people in charge of that, but you shouldn't be contacting them directly with anything other than general questions. Don't go off emailing them all the time because it can be irritating.

10) When asked to run through the script myself before sendin?g it in, does that mean no editors are provided?

It is NOT the editor's job to fix your grammar and your spelling for you. That is your job. Editors are there to figure out what is publishable and profitable. If you send a manuscript in with lots of mistakes you can expect a quick rejection.

11) Must you pay for the publishing services? If so, what does this mean in terms of the quality of the work?

NO. Never ever ever EVER pay for a publisher to publisher your work unless you are specifically going to a self-publishing press. REAL publishers do not ask for fees or for you to buy the books. REAL publishers pay you.