You're right, Emma, and in fact nobody has ever made a fuss about my word count, ever, or objected to any discrepancy or some such thing. I've always used MS Word. However, I do find it interesting to note the differences.

In that forum, I was not told that my result was impossible is I was using courier new 12.
And I wasn't; I used TNR. So I changed to courier new and hey presto:


I now have 636 pages, as opposed to 578 with TNR. And word counts are as follows:


MS WORD: 166 671

page count x 250: 159 000

characters by 5.65: 161 043

So the discrepamcy is now less obvious.

I guess word count is a guideline at the end of the day. It will never stand in the way of a good story, well told.

Having said that, my first novel was handwritten, and when typed up was about 200,000 pages. That is now reduced to approx 130,000, so it shows you the amount of editing I've done. It was a first attempt, so I tended to waffle and have since learn to curb my flights of verbosity.

At 130,000, the book is still over the recommended word count of most publishers, but I still managed to secure a contract when the book was 145,000!

JB

Having said that, my first novel was handwritten, and when typed up was about 200,000 pages. That is now reduced to approx 130,000,

200000 pages, that was one WHOPPER of a book!

Tell me about it! A lot of it was the work of someone discovery their writing skill again, and so a lot of it was just verbal vomit on paper. The whole process has been akin to sculpture. I had a block of stone and within it, this rather complicated tale. So I've cut away the dross and brought the story to the fore.

Editing is easier now, as since I wrote the book in the first place, my skill has improved dramatically. Now I'm nowhere near as wordy, and that is due to WW!

I still have a box file full of the handwritten pages, a staggering stack of ink!


JB

There was another thread on the hilary johnson service but I can't find it. I used them and they're very sweet people but they have a very strong perspective towards commercialism. My bad as I was looking more for tips and constructive comments on grammar etc. I should have gone for an editing service.

HJ provided a report which though absolutely fine and very positive indeed, I did get large sense of it being from one perspective.

I wasn't expecting it to be subjective, but it was. Very much so.

I just wanted to post that up. Definitely not a negative versus them at all, but just so you know what you get.

Yes, I heard HJ speak, and that was the impression I got, though she herself seemed an extraordinarily nice person. Of course, they don't pretend to be other than commercial - it's what most people want - and there are other services that get blamed for not being hard-headed enough. I'd tend to say, if you want to get an almost-publishable book published, use HJ or similar, if you want to learn to write, do a Masters. The costs are not very different.

Emma

I have to say, in retropsect, though she did set me up with a top agent, that agent also turned out to be vey much on the commercial side, and when she noticed I was actually trying to grow as a writer, and improve myself and my writing at the expense of the commercial aspects, she was quite ready to drop me (though officially I dropped her!)
She (the agent) told me quite frankly that "aquisitions editors are xenophobic" and that I should give them what they want, and NOT set my books in my home country of Guyana. Which is exactly what I did.
The agent and HJ are both extremely nice people, friends; but niceness has nothing to do with it.
To get a foot in the door HJ is very good, but at my stage in the game I would not use her again.

"aquisitions editors are xenophobic" and that I should give them what they want, and NOT set my books in my home country of Guyana

The trouble is, they can tell us any amount about the terms in which the trade thinks, but we want to be published on our own terms.

I nearly said, Alexander McCall Smith doesn't seem to have suffered from editorial xenophobia, but from the little I've read, he's writing to such a very English formula that the setting is probably the only thing that's foreign, if you see what I mean.

Aruna, do you have different agent now? I do think sometimes it's that particular agent/editor who doesn't get it. I know I've had some rejections which were very obviously because of that, and I knew my current agent was the one because everything she talked about - including what sort of books it was like - was in my terms: she got what I was trying to do.

Emma

On MS length, I'd say below 75,000 the trade thinks it's short so it had better be sweet, and below 65,000 they're probably not interested.

However, Alice Thompson's debut novel(la?) Justine was (if my calculations aren't entirely off the mark) about 45,000 words, and her second book Pharos doesn't look much longer.

It seems to me that literary fiction is often shorter than more 'commercial' fiction. (Not that it's usually below 60,000, but still, shorter on average.) I wonder why that is? Perhaps a book that's both (supposedly) 'difficult' AND very long would be a bit daunting to readers?

Emma,
to tell you the truth, my wish right now is to sidestep agents altogether and go straight for the editors. I got a wonderful rejection from Bloomsbury - she read it, enjoyed it, and made some great comments; only, she said, it wasn't suitable for Bloomsbury's "tough" list. She practicaly said that had she been with another publisher she would have taken it on. Another editor, this time from Headline (but not yours!) read the partial and asked for the full, which I sent about a week ago.
And then last week I got up my courage and contacted my French editor - a wonderful man who loved my first book. he called me back and we had a long and lovely talk. He said that in France authors don't have agents at all, unless thet are supernormally successful that they really can't handle the commercial side of things. I told him how I felt about agents - that they only have the selling of the ms to editors in mind, and not the actual book. He agreed. he said, that when an editro read a ms he's thinking of ther readers - reading it the way they would. Agents inject their own little filter.
Anyway, he asked for the ms and promised to read it quickly, and you know what, if he accepts it I'm definitely NOT going to pass it over to an agent, but sell the French rights on my own. I'm a member of the Society of Authors and I'll get them to look at the contract.

Same thing with that Headline editor. A few agents are reading it at the same time but if she were to accept it I'm not going to take an agent. I am really hoping for Headline - they publish Andrea Levy, and she's the one I like to compare my work to the most. Same kind of subject matter, just that mine is set entirely in Guyana.

Of course, with editors it's the same as what you say - they have to absolutely "click" with you and what your novel has to say, and finding exactly the right one can be difficult - especially if you have nothing to go on except their names. It can be very frustrating!
A few weeks ago, one agent from a medium-sized agency asked for the full ms; I sent it in - not immediately, but about 3 weeks later - and almost by return post they sent me a letter saying theyy "had read it with interest" but it wasn't for them. My foot! it was a SOLICITED ms! That letter came today and I really feel like saying SOMETHING.

I know, it makes you want to spit! Sometimes when that sort of thing happens I wonder if things go astray internally, and the person who like the sample never actually saw the whole thing, which is even more annoying. Is there any mileage in asking the Bloomsbury editor who might like it, if it's not right for her own list?

Well done you for being prepared to go it alone. I suspect it's not in anyone in the trade's interests to suggest that you can perfectly well do that, so they don't.

Emma

Yes, I think I wouldn't use them again either. I just feel the reader was reading as if it was a novel they'd bought at Smiths, and was giving a very personal opinion. It's not like their opinion was bad though, in fact the reader liked it but the reader was very set in the way of the genre of my book 4 years ago, which meant they thought I should change the ending. Not that I have a problem to do so to be honest, but at the end of the day I don't feel it was worth the money I paid. All my market research goes very much against a lot of what was said. It is a case of if you want to sell out to the man, HJ is going to do a good job of helping you, -provided- that they're on track. I felt like the changes they suggested would not help me any more get published to be honest. Ah well.

<Added>

Just to clarify it a bit - it's because they didn't critique the structure, characters, story but just brought up stuff to make it commercial in a way I felt I'd get that from an editor. and the editor of a publisher would give their personal thoughts on what they wanted. Anyway, we'll see, we'll see....

In defence of HJ - I think it depends a lot which of her readers you get, and I think she herself doesn't do that much any more. She had cancer a few years ago and we all thought she was going to die - it was THAT close. She fought like a tiger and pulled through.
Her advice to me at the time was actually very thorough, and it WAS on structure, POV, and several points that really improved the work.

Yes, and I think that a lot of people will benefit greatly from it. I'm definitely not wanting to pass it off negatively.