Quote:
Originally Posted by susan_cassidy
Perhaps the majority of self-published authors are more likely relatively new authors whose stories can't sustain 450 pages. I think it would take a bit more experience to write a book that long. Some stories take 250 pages to tell, others take 600 pages. It just depends on the story.
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Beg to differ.
I've seen plenty of first novels with heft.
If anything you would expect veteran authors to be more concise.
If this effect is true, which I'm somewhat skeptical of, it may simply be that indies aren't constrained by tradpub schedules and limits (no more than two releases a year for even prolific writers) and can architect leaner series stories by not recapping or explaining as much, counting on other volumes to fill out the backstory. In tradpub there is no guarantee early series volumes will even be available when the followups arrive a year or three later, whereas an Indie knows everything will be available.
Also, back in the olden days, pre-multinationals, a great many paperback originals ran 50-60k words and under 200 pages. Nowadays stories that short either get padded or rejected because of size and price policies.