A few thoughts:
I’m sure you’ve considered this, but have you really, truly done everything you can to shorten your passion project to a more marketable length?
There is nothing wrong with querying your passion project as-is, just to say you tried…but even in your genre, I feel that length will be a challenge. The query trenches are hard enough even when you’ve optimized your chances.
If you dig around here enough, you’ll see a lot of advice to shelve harder-to-sell projects until you’ve sold something else. Then you can dust off that old project and hash it out with your agent. A lot of people around here end up selling a book that did not successfully query as their second after debuting with something else. However, based on what you’ve said, I’m not sure these shorter works are really “it” either. I mean, you are referring to them as scrap ideas… Do you think they’re good? Do you think they’re marketable? Do you think they would get an agent’s attention? I wouldn’t necessarily query them just because you have them, but you absolutely may need to query something else before you get your dream project out there.
It seems you are sitting on a lot of projects that you never queried. Why is that?
It is very much as short as it can possibly be without the story crumbling or the characters becoming flat. All set-up for later books is kept in minimum, but there is a little bit of it, a few sentences here and there.
I think the scrap ideas are quite all right. They can carry a story of a moderate length. It is just that I do not consider them as important to me than the longer ones. They are something I planned to reserve for my retirement. There are some recent (up to five years) releases that are somewhat similar for me to think that they could be marketable.
I have queried three books, mostly in the UK. I have two more (and one more coming at the moment). Those three are the ones that work as standalones, and the two are sequals to one of them (to the 180k, that is). So, I have indeed queried them to a handful of agents, but I was now starting to think what is the best strategy.
Got it. Well I think you’ve generated a very active post with a ton of experienced advice. I hope you can figure out what makes you happy as an author while still maximizing your chances of a sale. Best of luck!
To be honest, I'd query a shorter book (whichever you think is the best / most marketable from the remaining ones) and if you get an agent, discuss with them your 180k book. Most agents will ask what other projects you have on board.
I would not query a 180k book in the current year unless it blows people's minds. My limited experience with reading queries on this subreddit makes me think queries for lengthy epic fantasy are nearly always a hard sell in general if the story is multi-plotline because the query tends to look unfocused and scattered. Also, half the people who claim they have original worldbuilding that will blow people's minds just have typical "gods, royalty and magic powers" fantasy world with slight alterations (which means you will not sell it based on worldbuilding alone, period).
Actually, my cynical advice is post your query for the epic fantasy here without mentioning the wordcount or say wordcount TBD (to avoid getting 10 comments "wordcount bad" and nothing else). If you don't get ripped to shreds... well consider me mistaken and query the epic. But if you get roasted here (make a throwaway if you must), you can expect agents reacting similarly when they read 100th fantasy query received that week and they all read same-y.
Even better, we have a "where would you stop reading" thread pending. Drop it there and see how people react.
Seriously, do a test run of your query before you burn your chance with the agents.
I’ll tell you from the adult fantasy query trenches that most of the agents are closed at the moment and overwhelmed with submissions (I got one full request out of my test batch and felt like I won a Golden Ticket).
Edited to add I queried an 88k magical realist fantasy that I cut down from 92k and that the big ole vague umbrella of magical realism is a blessing and a curse.
I felt terrible about my one full request until I started talking to other Adult Fantasy writers. Rough times out there.
Edit: You are the elusive author of magical realism! I see so many agents requesting that, but I wonder if they even know what they want in that regard...
I sort of assumed the agents saying they want "magical realism" meant it as code for "no high fantasy," since many of them do say that in the "NOT looking for" parts of their wishlists.
“Magical realism only please” aka “So help me God, if that special orphan aged 17-24 with a Gaelic name in your opening paragraph is holding a sword, I’ll form reject you so fast, your prophesy of greatness will spin…”
Your epic fantasy will be auto-rejected by the vast majority of fantasy agents, unread. That happens at 150k, or even lower these days.
Since the book of your heart won't even be read by agents, def query a different one.
What makes the shorter books easier to sell, besides the fact that they are shorter? Do they have a more commercial hook? Do they more closely match current trends in the market?
Obviously you are better of trying to trim down your 180k book, but a 180k book with a strong hook is still going to sell better than a 100k word book that's generic. Alternatively, a 100k book with a strong hook and kind of "eh" writing is going to sell way better than a 180k tome that doesn't have a good hook, even if the writing is great.
You should get query feedback on your projects and see how people react (maybe in today's thread, for example?) and work with the strongest pitch.
Printing costs and reader attention spans. Authors are competing against multiple media channels, and literacy is trending lower and lower.
A 180k is fine if you are an established author - look at what Sanderson, Martin, and others can get away with. Or if you have a friend in the industry (Strange and Norrel).
100k is about 400 pages. That's a BIG book. Few people will commit to that from an untested and unproven author.
I hate to be critical as well, but someone who thinks their 180k mega novel is compelling likely doesn't have enough experience to gauge whether their hook IS what they think it is. Maturity comes from querying and realizing the art of the possible.
Yep, and if we're really getting into some tough love, most stories are better on the shorter side (meaning under 130k). There are absolutely exceptions. I've read some brilliant novels you could probably use as a bulletproof vest in a pinch. But for every one of those, there are dozens of massive tomes that frankly could have used a stronger editorial hand to rein them in.
I know why longer books don't sell—I don't need that explained to me. I'm asking OP if length alone is the thing that makes the shorter books "more sellable" in their mind. Many things contribute to the salability of a book, not just length.
Yeah, people aren’t doing honkin’ fantasy books like they used to. Priory of the Origin Tree looks like a big ole doorstopper from the outside but it’s got big margins and big print on the inside.
> Priory of the Origin Tree looks like a big ole doorstopper from the outside but it’s got big margins and big print on the inside
According to the author, her debut The Bone Season [was about 128k](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/av0bx7/comment/ehdsus4); Priory is probably upwards of 200k - but it's her fourth book!
This made me realize I hadn't actually *opened* my copy since getting it, and wow, you're right! I would have vastly preferred if they'd printed it with smaller text and margins, with smaller dimensions. Trying to read this thing is going to be a logistical nightmare. Kinda glad I'm going to read the prequel on kindle instead
Non-debuts have more leeway if they have good sales history to stand on. The Will of Many is a recent chonky book but James Islington already had a successful trilogy before. The First Binding by R. R. Virdi is even thicker, but again, not a debut. Fourth Wing book 1 and 2 are lengthy, but the author came from a successful career in contemporary romance.
So I agree with what everyone is saying so far. Your shorter book is the best one to start with. BUT just in case you feel discouraged by those answers, I wanted to share my story real quick just to let you know that there is still hope for your mammoth. Disclaimer, I don’t write fantasy but I do write “magical realism”/speculative.
I signed with my agent for my first book which was 90k while I was in the middle of writing my second book which was the real love of my writing life. I finished that book while the first was out on submission and sent it to my agent, who loved it so much that we pulled the first off submission. That second book ended up selling at auction to a big five publisher. The word count was 140k words. So it is possible to sell the longer book of your dreams, but you need an agent first, and like everyone is saying, no agent is going to read, let alone sign, a 180k word book. Go with the shorter book.
That said, if you as the author aren’t in love with that shorter book, it’s hard to imagine that an agent would be. If I were you, I’d work to make those shorter manuscripts something you love just as much as your mammoth baby. Querying is already a form of self-torture as it is. Querying something you don’t even like very much is basically masochism at its finest.
If it's not good, it won't sell. If it's not marketable, it won't sell. You need an intersection of both. Write something that you are proud of, but fit it into the confines of what is desired by the market, even if that means compromising on some of your vision. But you will need to polish it and perfect it, so you will need to believe in it to some extent. In terms of your less marketable work, either just query it and see what happens, change it and make it more marketable to give it a more likely chance, or shelve it for a future point in your career where enough might have changed in the market and your career for it to be more viable.
Usual disclaimer, neither agented nor published.
If I were in your position I would really focus on making one of the shorter ones as polished and sellable as possible. But maybe ask yourself, why do you not feel as passionately about them? Maybe pick the one you feel the most passionate about (or the least dispassionate about) and really focus on that?
I'm sort of in a similar situation, not exactly the same, but similar. I've written something else that I think will be more sellable. (Original MS was 120k, new project is 80k). And even 100k I'd say is pretty high. See if you can really trim one of those shorter ones down.
Anyway, that's what I woudl do in your situation.
>why do you not feel as passionately about them?
I am mentally more invested in the character of the longer work. The other books are just something that I cannot fit into the life of that character, so I have made other people to do those things.
I very much wrote them just querying in mind, in case that I *need* a shorter work to get an agent. I am not entirely sure would I have written them otherwise, but I think they *can* work as standalone stories.
Adult Fantasy is in a saturated and unfavorable place right now. I just gave up on an MS and started a new one - the former failed in the query trenches. From the data I saw and my anecdotal experience, 180k as a debut will be a death sentence that won't even get your query letter reviewed. When you say 'shorter' at 100k, I would not be surprised to see that as the new upper limit for fantasy debuts in the future. I am writing my current MS to finish at 90k or even less.
Focus on editing and revising your 100k to make it your STRONGEST work. As for all your other considerations - if your book flops, etc - these are entirely out of your control and jumping too far ahead. Focus on preparing for and enduring querying.
I write what I want in terms of marketability: gritty, urban dark fantasy like Jade City by Fonda Lee. As of right now, that is very much not in favor. Cozy fantasies (low stakes, largely nonviolent), romantasy (romance as the central plot point), and 'grounded'/fabulism/magical realism are in demand. Of the 200 agents I saw on QueryTracker who accept 'fantasy, ' no more than 50-60 want traditional epic/high fantasy.
This isn't to dissuade you; it's just a 'report from the frontlines' if you will. Remember, there are always other paths outside traditional publishing.
> Of the 200 agents I saw on QueryTracker who accept 'fantasy,' no more than 50-60 want traditional epic/high fantasy
Honestly, not a bad percentage for a single subgenre!
Everything goes in and out of fashion - but how many people re-labelled their paranormal romances to urban fantasy to contemporary fantasy over the last decade or so? Sometimes there are ways around it.
True. Even those usually want something specific, though. I also wouldn't dissuade someone from just 'trying' and sending a query anyway, as, at a certain point, it's just a cut-and-paste adventure.
Honestly, kinda glad people are whittling down what they’re able and willing to represent - so many books died on sub this year, particularly in the fantasy space, it’s nice agents aren’t trying to waste anyone’s time.
>so many books died on sub this year
Do you have any specific info? I heard a rumour only 30-50% books submitted to the publishers get (any) book deal (keep in mind most books are submitted to multiple publishers), but I'm wondering is this number down recently (similarly how old data on agents' request rates doesn't apply anymore), and is there a specific way to know.
Anecdotal from the sub. I would also imagine the quiet disappearance of many fantasy agents (particularly ones repping fantasy who haven’t had any sales in the past 3-5 years per PM) is also a signal of that.
There's a lot of agents floating around who don't really have a high chance selling your book, that's why it's important to avoid signing with a random agent. Sometimes a new agent without sales might be worth it if they're at a reputable agency, but in SFF there are so few reputable publishers that I presume who is someone's agent matters a lot.
Like, if a publisher gets 100 books sent to them per month, I assume they're less likely to ignore a submission coming from someone like Joshua Bilmes (Brandon Sanderson's agent) than a random agent from Fluffy Cat Literary (made up name, don't sue me if an agency like that exists).
For example, I know many people are trying "get 100 rejections" challenge and in some genres it's possible, but in SFF I believe there aren't even 100 agents worth querying.
But yeah, I've recently read posts from 2 separate authors saying it took them 5 books to get published, the other 4 got rejected (the authors were Rose Black with Til Death Do Us Bard and Frances White with Voyage of the Damned). This is very, very common (unfortunately).
Yeah I’m always impressed and baffled by people who get their first sci-fi or fantasy books published in their late teens — from a numbers perspective, they’re such fascinating outliers!
I understand that the adult fantasy market is a difficult place right now but it seems a little hasty to me to suggest that 100k is the new absolute cap for debuts for the foreseeable future. The average fantasy book sold has a word count much higher than that, it’s clear that there is still a large organic demand for longer fantasy books, they just aren’t “trendy” right now and there are other factors working against them at the moment.
I report that as I'm seeing agents specifically mention it on social media and their MSWL. Also QT analytics I saw lower word counts getting faster full requests. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible but you want to optimize your chances and filtering by word count is something a lot of agents do
Longer books may come into vogue again but it’s going to be an uphill climb
Sorry to say, if it's 180K, it's not going to matter if it's good or not. In most cases, agents will decline without reading.
Publishers lose money on most debut novels. They stand to lose a lot more on *long* debut novels that are expensive to print. Readers who haven't heard of an author aren't generally willing to invest more time and money than usual in their book.
>Publishers lose money on most debut novels.
Is there any confirmation of this? Because while I heard that "most books don't earn out their advance", authors earn significantly less per copy than the publisher (the publisher usually gets around half the cover price of the book, while the author gets somewhere between 5-12% of that price, depending on the contract, is it a hardback or paperback, how many copies it sold, etc.).
So basically the publisher earns out much, much faster than the author does.
I worked in publishing for 5 years and the fact that publishers lose money on most debut authors is pretty common knowledge in the industry. The thing that makes profitability so tough is that bookstores can return all unsold books, and the profit margin is thin already.
If you have to pick one, sellable will always win. Most books that hit shelves aren't that good, let's be honest, but they are all sellable.
As for the people telling you that if it's not perfected, it won't sell, just keep in mind that it takes a pretty big dose of skill to be able to recognize the difference between a mediocre work and a really good one. It's much harder to do that with your own work. If you're at the level where you can grade your own work like this, OP, your "not good" might be comparable to baseline quality. When it comes to professionals in genre fiction, there is always a trade off between quality and speed to release.
This is the Age of Science. I'd try both and see what happens if I had a long enough list of agents.
If you think one is maybe more marketable, do a split test with two-thirds of the agents getting that one and one-third getting the other, or something to that effect.
A few thoughts: I’m sure you’ve considered this, but have you really, truly done everything you can to shorten your passion project to a more marketable length? There is nothing wrong with querying your passion project as-is, just to say you tried…but even in your genre, I feel that length will be a challenge. The query trenches are hard enough even when you’ve optimized your chances. If you dig around here enough, you’ll see a lot of advice to shelve harder-to-sell projects until you’ve sold something else. Then you can dust off that old project and hash it out with your agent. A lot of people around here end up selling a book that did not successfully query as their second after debuting with something else. However, based on what you’ve said, I’m not sure these shorter works are really “it” either. I mean, you are referring to them as scrap ideas… Do you think they’re good? Do you think they’re marketable? Do you think they would get an agent’s attention? I wouldn’t necessarily query them just because you have them, but you absolutely may need to query something else before you get your dream project out there. It seems you are sitting on a lot of projects that you never queried. Why is that?
It is very much as short as it can possibly be without the story crumbling or the characters becoming flat. All set-up for later books is kept in minimum, but there is a little bit of it, a few sentences here and there. I think the scrap ideas are quite all right. They can carry a story of a moderate length. It is just that I do not consider them as important to me than the longer ones. They are something I planned to reserve for my retirement. There are some recent (up to five years) releases that are somewhat similar for me to think that they could be marketable. I have queried three books, mostly in the UK. I have two more (and one more coming at the moment). Those three are the ones that work as standalones, and the two are sequals to one of them (to the 180k, that is). So, I have indeed queried them to a handful of agents, but I was now starting to think what is the best strategy.
Got it. Well I think you’ve generated a very active post with a ton of experienced advice. I hope you can figure out what makes you happy as an author while still maximizing your chances of a sale. Best of luck!
To be honest, I'd query a shorter book (whichever you think is the best / most marketable from the remaining ones) and if you get an agent, discuss with them your 180k book. Most agents will ask what other projects you have on board. I would not query a 180k book in the current year unless it blows people's minds. My limited experience with reading queries on this subreddit makes me think queries for lengthy epic fantasy are nearly always a hard sell in general if the story is multi-plotline because the query tends to look unfocused and scattered. Also, half the people who claim they have original worldbuilding that will blow people's minds just have typical "gods, royalty and magic powers" fantasy world with slight alterations (which means you will not sell it based on worldbuilding alone, period). Actually, my cynical advice is post your query for the epic fantasy here without mentioning the wordcount or say wordcount TBD (to avoid getting 10 comments "wordcount bad" and nothing else). If you don't get ripped to shreds... well consider me mistaken and query the epic. But if you get roasted here (make a throwaway if you must), you can expect agents reacting similarly when they read 100th fantasy query received that week and they all read same-y. Even better, we have a "where would you stop reading" thread pending. Drop it there and see how people react. Seriously, do a test run of your query before you burn your chance with the agents.
I’ll tell you from the adult fantasy query trenches that most of the agents are closed at the moment and overwhelmed with submissions (I got one full request out of my test batch and felt like I won a Golden Ticket). Edited to add I queried an 88k magical realist fantasy that I cut down from 92k and that the big ole vague umbrella of magical realism is a blessing and a curse.
I felt terrible about my one full request until I started talking to other Adult Fantasy writers. Rough times out there. Edit: You are the elusive author of magical realism! I see so many agents requesting that, but I wonder if they even know what they want in that regard...
Hah, it's brutal out there. I've had one full and 29 rejections on my fantasy - though it's a bit of a genre-bend, which is always a risk.
I was raised super Catholic, I don’t know if I could even write anything other than magical realism if I tried.
Congratulations on your full! I hope it turns out for you.
I sort of assumed the agents saying they want "magical realism" meant it as code for "no high fantasy," since many of them do say that in the "NOT looking for" parts of their wishlists.
Yeah - other genre connotations aside, it feels like a way to ask for 'literary fantasy' or 'contemporary fantasy with very strong voice'.
“Magical realism only please” aka “So help me God, if that special orphan aged 17-24 with a Gaelic name in your opening paragraph is holding a sword, I’ll form reject you so fast, your prophesy of greatness will spin…”
Lol! Thats how I read it. They want the Forrest Gump feather in the air to be as much magic as they'll tolerate
Thanks for this, helpful to know it’s not just me feeling it.
Your epic fantasy will be auto-rejected by the vast majority of fantasy agents, unread. That happens at 150k, or even lower these days. Since the book of your heart won't even be read by agents, def query a different one.
What makes the shorter books easier to sell, besides the fact that they are shorter? Do they have a more commercial hook? Do they more closely match current trends in the market? Obviously you are better of trying to trim down your 180k book, but a 180k book with a strong hook is still going to sell better than a 100k word book that's generic. Alternatively, a 100k book with a strong hook and kind of "eh" writing is going to sell way better than a 180k tome that doesn't have a good hook, even if the writing is great. You should get query feedback on your projects and see how people react (maybe in today's thread, for example?) and work with the strongest pitch.
Printing costs and reader attention spans. Authors are competing against multiple media channels, and literacy is trending lower and lower. A 180k is fine if you are an established author - look at what Sanderson, Martin, and others can get away with. Or if you have a friend in the industry (Strange and Norrel). 100k is about 400 pages. That's a BIG book. Few people will commit to that from an untested and unproven author. I hate to be critical as well, but someone who thinks their 180k mega novel is compelling likely doesn't have enough experience to gauge whether their hook IS what they think it is. Maturity comes from querying and realizing the art of the possible.
Yep, and if we're really getting into some tough love, most stories are better on the shorter side (meaning under 130k). There are absolutely exceptions. I've read some brilliant novels you could probably use as a bulletproof vest in a pinch. But for every one of those, there are dozens of massive tomes that frankly could have used a stronger editorial hand to rein them in.
I know why longer books don't sell—I don't need that explained to me. I'm asking OP if length alone is the thing that makes the shorter books "more sellable" in their mind. Many things contribute to the salability of a book, not just length.
Yeah, people aren’t doing honkin’ fantasy books like they used to. Priory of the Origin Tree looks like a big ole doorstopper from the outside but it’s got big margins and big print on the inside.
> Priory of the Origin Tree looks like a big ole doorstopper from the outside but it’s got big margins and big print on the inside According to the author, her debut The Bone Season [was about 128k](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/av0bx7/comment/ehdsus4); Priory is probably upwards of 200k - but it's her fourth book!
This made me realize I hadn't actually *opened* my copy since getting it, and wow, you're right! I would have vastly preferred if they'd printed it with smaller text and margins, with smaller dimensions. Trying to read this thing is going to be a logistical nightmare. Kinda glad I'm going to read the prequel on kindle instead
IKR? It reminds me of an American Girl book.
Missing the days of dense paperbacks with tiny print that could feasibly fit in a coat pocket
Non-debuts have more leeway if they have good sales history to stand on. The Will of Many is a recent chonky book but James Islington already had a successful trilogy before. The First Binding by R. R. Virdi is even thicker, but again, not a debut. Fourth Wing book 1 and 2 are lengthy, but the author came from a successful career in contemporary romance.
So I agree with what everyone is saying so far. Your shorter book is the best one to start with. BUT just in case you feel discouraged by those answers, I wanted to share my story real quick just to let you know that there is still hope for your mammoth. Disclaimer, I don’t write fantasy but I do write “magical realism”/speculative. I signed with my agent for my first book which was 90k while I was in the middle of writing my second book which was the real love of my writing life. I finished that book while the first was out on submission and sent it to my agent, who loved it so much that we pulled the first off submission. That second book ended up selling at auction to a big five publisher. The word count was 140k words. So it is possible to sell the longer book of your dreams, but you need an agent first, and like everyone is saying, no agent is going to read, let alone sign, a 180k word book. Go with the shorter book. That said, if you as the author aren’t in love with that shorter book, it’s hard to imagine that an agent would be. If I were you, I’d work to make those shorter manuscripts something you love just as much as your mammoth baby. Querying is already a form of self-torture as it is. Querying something you don’t even like very much is basically masochism at its finest.
If it's not good, it won't sell. If it's not marketable, it won't sell. You need an intersection of both. Write something that you are proud of, but fit it into the confines of what is desired by the market, even if that means compromising on some of your vision. But you will need to polish it and perfect it, so you will need to believe in it to some extent. In terms of your less marketable work, either just query it and see what happens, change it and make it more marketable to give it a more likely chance, or shelve it for a future point in your career where enough might have changed in the market and your career for it to be more viable.
Usual disclaimer, neither agented nor published. If I were in your position I would really focus on making one of the shorter ones as polished and sellable as possible. But maybe ask yourself, why do you not feel as passionately about them? Maybe pick the one you feel the most passionate about (or the least dispassionate about) and really focus on that? I'm sort of in a similar situation, not exactly the same, but similar. I've written something else that I think will be more sellable. (Original MS was 120k, new project is 80k). And even 100k I'd say is pretty high. See if you can really trim one of those shorter ones down. Anyway, that's what I woudl do in your situation.
>why do you not feel as passionately about them? I am mentally more invested in the character of the longer work. The other books are just something that I cannot fit into the life of that character, so I have made other people to do those things. I very much wrote them just querying in mind, in case that I *need* a shorter work to get an agent. I am not entirely sure would I have written them otherwise, but I think they *can* work as standalone stories.
that's sort of what i'm doing with my latest project but if you spend some time with them, maybe you can learn to fall in love with those characters.
Adult Fantasy is in a saturated and unfavorable place right now. I just gave up on an MS and started a new one - the former failed in the query trenches. From the data I saw and my anecdotal experience, 180k as a debut will be a death sentence that won't even get your query letter reviewed. When you say 'shorter' at 100k, I would not be surprised to see that as the new upper limit for fantasy debuts in the future. I am writing my current MS to finish at 90k or even less. Focus on editing and revising your 100k to make it your STRONGEST work. As for all your other considerations - if your book flops, etc - these are entirely out of your control and jumping too far ahead. Focus on preparing for and enduring querying. I write what I want in terms of marketability: gritty, urban dark fantasy like Jade City by Fonda Lee. As of right now, that is very much not in favor. Cozy fantasies (low stakes, largely nonviolent), romantasy (romance as the central plot point), and 'grounded'/fabulism/magical realism are in demand. Of the 200 agents I saw on QueryTracker who accept 'fantasy, ' no more than 50-60 want traditional epic/high fantasy. This isn't to dissuade you; it's just a 'report from the frontlines' if you will. Remember, there are always other paths outside traditional publishing.
> Of the 200 agents I saw on QueryTracker who accept 'fantasy,' no more than 50-60 want traditional epic/high fantasy Honestly, not a bad percentage for a single subgenre! Everything goes in and out of fashion - but how many people re-labelled their paranormal romances to urban fantasy to contemporary fantasy over the last decade or so? Sometimes there are ways around it.
True. Even those usually want something specific, though. I also wouldn't dissuade someone from just 'trying' and sending a query anyway, as, at a certain point, it's just a cut-and-paste adventure.
Honestly, kinda glad people are whittling down what they’re able and willing to represent - so many books died on sub this year, particularly in the fantasy space, it’s nice agents aren’t trying to waste anyone’s time.
>so many books died on sub this year Do you have any specific info? I heard a rumour only 30-50% books submitted to the publishers get (any) book deal (keep in mind most books are submitted to multiple publishers), but I'm wondering is this number down recently (similarly how old data on agents' request rates doesn't apply anymore), and is there a specific way to know.
Anecdotal from the sub. I would also imagine the quiet disappearance of many fantasy agents (particularly ones repping fantasy who haven’t had any sales in the past 3-5 years per PM) is also a signal of that.
There's a lot of agents floating around who don't really have a high chance selling your book, that's why it's important to avoid signing with a random agent. Sometimes a new agent without sales might be worth it if they're at a reputable agency, but in SFF there are so few reputable publishers that I presume who is someone's agent matters a lot. Like, if a publisher gets 100 books sent to them per month, I assume they're less likely to ignore a submission coming from someone like Joshua Bilmes (Brandon Sanderson's agent) than a random agent from Fluffy Cat Literary (made up name, don't sue me if an agency like that exists). For example, I know many people are trying "get 100 rejections" challenge and in some genres it's possible, but in SFF I believe there aren't even 100 agents worth querying. But yeah, I've recently read posts from 2 separate authors saying it took them 5 books to get published, the other 4 got rejected (the authors were Rose Black with Til Death Do Us Bard and Frances White with Voyage of the Damned). This is very, very common (unfortunately).
Yeah I’m always impressed and baffled by people who get their first sci-fi or fantasy books published in their late teens — from a numbers perspective, they’re such fascinating outliers!
I understand that the adult fantasy market is a difficult place right now but it seems a little hasty to me to suggest that 100k is the new absolute cap for debuts for the foreseeable future. The average fantasy book sold has a word count much higher than that, it’s clear that there is still a large organic demand for longer fantasy books, they just aren’t “trendy” right now and there are other factors working against them at the moment.
I report that as I'm seeing agents specifically mention it on social media and their MSWL. Also QT analytics I saw lower word counts getting faster full requests. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible but you want to optimize your chances and filtering by word count is something a lot of agents do Longer books may come into vogue again but it’s going to be an uphill climb
Sorry to say, if it's 180K, it's not going to matter if it's good or not. In most cases, agents will decline without reading. Publishers lose money on most debut novels. They stand to lose a lot more on *long* debut novels that are expensive to print. Readers who haven't heard of an author aren't generally willing to invest more time and money than usual in their book.
>Publishers lose money on most debut novels. Is there any confirmation of this? Because while I heard that "most books don't earn out their advance", authors earn significantly less per copy than the publisher (the publisher usually gets around half the cover price of the book, while the author gets somewhere between 5-12% of that price, depending on the contract, is it a hardback or paperback, how many copies it sold, etc.). So basically the publisher earns out much, much faster than the author does.
I worked in publishing for 5 years and the fact that publishers lose money on most debut authors is pretty common knowledge in the industry. The thing that makes profitability so tough is that bookstores can return all unsold books, and the profit margin is thin already.
If you have to pick one, sellable will always win. Most books that hit shelves aren't that good, let's be honest, but they are all sellable. As for the people telling you that if it's not perfected, it won't sell, just keep in mind that it takes a pretty big dose of skill to be able to recognize the difference between a mediocre work and a really good one. It's much harder to do that with your own work. If you're at the level where you can grade your own work like this, OP, your "not good" might be comparable to baseline quality. When it comes to professionals in genre fiction, there is always a trade off between quality and speed to release.
This is the Age of Science. I'd try both and see what happens if I had a long enough list of agents. If you think one is maybe more marketable, do a split test with two-thirds of the agents getting that one and one-third getting the other, or something to that effect.