To divide, or not to divide

[Mack]

Good evening,


I've been working on a rewrite of a manuscript, along with a restructuring of it. Essentially it is a tale consisting of three stories, seperated by time - though general events and select actors are carried over across each part.

Trouble is, I'm looking at a tally of 580.000 words. That realisation is making me consider the option of splitting it up in three seperate stories, as individual books thus.

Needless to say, that would make the individual book a bit short, but this does give room for bringing back several strong event paths which I have had to remove.
It would also require rewriting some parts to establish each individual book as its own, in case someone picked up the book in the middle, or the end.

At what point does a manuscript get too big to handle as a book for the reader, I wonder. Any thoughts, or considerations?

[[deleted user]]

I have just seen you on another thread, so hello again.
I would recommend splitting it into the three books. A 580,000 word book is definitely too long. Especially since it can be divided into three. The average length of a book is 70,000 words (give or take a few thousand)and a lot of people sometimes struggle to even get through that many.
It would even be possible to split into 6 separate books, splitting each story into two books. You would be left with three mini-series that are all connected into a bigger series.

Congratulations though on being able to accomplish that big of a writing project. It must have taken you a long time and you certainly have my respect for that.

[Mack]

Hi again :)

Well, I wrote the original some twenty years ago, in those days I had far more time at my disposal than today - something I am noticing indeed with the reworking of it.

Six parts seems a bit, well, much. Then again, I presume 580k is als a bit over the top.

Interesting approach though, splitting each story into two books.

Thanks, interesing considerations!

[C.M.J.]

Hi, Mack. Here's my two cents' worth.

J. R. R. Tolkien's editor forced him to divide his epic work into 3 parts, and I think it was the better for it. It's not that the book was necessarily too long for those of us who read quickly, but think of the anticipation those arbitrary breaks created. What you want to do as an author is drum up interest for your work and whatever follows. And on a purely monetary plane, you'd garner three times the sales potential.

If you look at it in those terms, you should break the book into parts.

Cheers, and I wish you good luck with your book.

[R.A.]

My 'Kergulen' is almost 205,000, and there are some who think it should have been broken up into smaller books. I don't agree, but there are plenty of people who like them smaller. On the other hand, people like me don't mind at all.
Still, if you have three separate stories you should seriously consider breaking it up. First, three books make more money than one. Second, if you intend to create a paper version of your book, it would be nearly impossible to make one that large. If you did, it would cost so much to produce that you would probably never be able to sell it.
Since it doesn't sound like there is a compelling reason to keep it one book, I would go with three. One third of 580,000 is not short. It's still a very full length novel. If you break it up, I think you'll be glad you did.

[Mack]

You've all given me quite a bit to think about. It is not a bad idea to look at it from a possible sales perspective as well, and yes, the reader's perspective is a leading factor.

If it were up to me, books would never end because the stories never do :P

I'll see if I can rework the structure, how the 3 part divide works out in terms of pages. And go over the stories again to see if individually they can be standalone.

[[deleted user]]

I agree that it might be more palatable for readers if you divide it into smaller sections, but only if they can actually work as separate pieces. You could always release 2 versions, the long version and then a version with three separate parts and let readers decide which way they want to purchase it.

[[deleted user]]

If I did release it as one book, I wouldn't do it in hard copy because the cost to make a book that huge would be too much for a reader to pay. It would probably be close to $50. I agree with J in that you could do two separate versions; one the entire thing and the other version would be split into three

[[deleted user]]

Serialize it.

Author buddy of mine has been releasing his work at 10k words each in Episodes.

Before the Shroud

And seems to have been doing quite good with it. He took up a weekly summer schedule for release.

I'd say follow the same or similar path then once it's all released put out an Omnibus of all episodes.

[[deleted user]]

Spider wrote: "Serialize it.

Author buddy of mine has been releasing his work at 10k words each in Episodes.

Before the Shroud

And seems to have been doing quite good with it. He took up a weekly summer sched..."

^^^ This.

[Mellie]

Word count is also influenced by genre, most adult fiction has a "sweet spot" of around 80-90,000 words. If you are writing epic fantasy, you can stretch that up to around 120k.

Keep in mind, if you decide to split the book up, each book needs to have a satisfying story arc, even though there will be threads that feed into the larger picture.

[Jim]

I'd split it to between 70,000 and 100,000 word blocks, but I think you'll find that as AW says you need a satisfying story in each book, you'll probably have to add in an extra 40,000 or so words across the board :-)

[Chris]

When I was querying publishers I kept getting told that 120k was what they were looking for in debut novels. However, if you're self-publishing it then you can have it as long as you like. Traditionally, books could only be as long as the spine of a paperback could handle, but for an ebook you could conceivably have it as long as you want. However, it makes sense from a visibility point of view to split it up.

[[deleted user]]

How long would each individual part be?

[John]

Both of my novels ran to around 140k words. In print book format (6x9, either hardcover or soft) that worked out to around 420 pages. Now, I've seen a few 1,000 page novels -- even read a few of them to completion; but that is really a lot to ask of a reader.

If you are an SPA (as I am) there are additional considerations. You'll pay extra for everything -- editing, interior formatting, and of course printing. Most publishing service packages out there are priced for a max of 100k words, with a per-word charge for the excess.

Printing is the real killer, since (as someone already pointed out) it will make your book more expensive (whether you are SPA or traditionally published). Of course, that doesn't apply to ebooks; but you still have the issue of burdening the reader with a long-term commitment.

I'd definitely split them into three -- particularly if you have three natural "break" points. And then, I'd consider going back and doing a "trim" edit on each of the three. Mine were 180k words each in the raw, first draft. I trimmed them down to 140K, and I think the end result was a better story -- "less talk, more action" so to speak.