60,000

The current draft of Stone of Names is a smidge over 60,000 words, which means it's a shortish novel. The story, from my point of view, is complete, and I'd like to be done with the major part of the writing, and I'd like to move on to editing and reviewing.

However, I'm also hoping to shop the novel out to literary agents, and there's always the possibility that the short length will make the book hard to sell. What do I do if an agent comes back and says "We might take this if it's a little longer"?

It would seem that the smart move would be to do whatever the agent suggests; after all, if adding 10,000 words to the novel gets it published, isn't that a victory? The problem is, I have no idea what I would do with an additional 10,000 words. What if I'm asked for 20,000? 40,000?

It's probably a silly thing to worry about unless the question actually comes up. For all I know, there may be a booming market in short novels these days.


The temptation, of course, is to just bypass the whole "agent" process and just self-publish again. I could probably have this thing up on Amazon after a Saturday's worth of work. But I've promised myself that I'd try to go the conventional route this time, so that's what I'll do.