Thread: Novel length and Re-Querying!

Okay, here's what I'm wondering about:

I've now had two agents reject me saying that the novel (188,000 words) is too long. After reading the articles they sent me, I realized that they were right. I'm in the middle of a MAJOR edit on the novel and it looks like I'm going to be able to get it down to somewhere in the 110,000 word range, which is an acceptable length for my genre.

Question is: I have had other rejections from agents, possibly because the word length scared them off! Is is okay to query them again with the edit that's the 110,000 length?

Thanks,

Kris

Might be worth it (though I honestly don't know). That said, even 110,000 is pretty long for a debut novel from an unknown author. I think around 70,000 - 80,000 is most generally accepted, just because an excessively high word count means more financial risk to the publisher. Plus most younger, less experienced writers tend to be much more wordy, which high word count can be an indicator of.

I don't know either, powerskris. But if it was a publisher, I'd never send an edited story/novel back to the same place unless they specifically asked me to edit and resubmit.

Ech, it's a tough one alright becuase agents are different from publishers. But hey, you're putting the effort in to get your wordcount down so I figure you're heading in the right direction and there must be plenty of other suitable agents out there you can query.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

NicholasJAmbrose, the articles I was given by the agent said the acceptable length depends on the genre, but that it's generally within 80,000 - 120,000 words. Again, that depends on the genre. For mine (Space Opera) up to 120,000 is acceptable which is why I'm playing it safe and trying to get it down to 110,000. I could post the link, if you like.