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As you might already know, I’m working (reading, researching, personalizing letters, etc.) to find a literary agent for my first novel (which you can learn about here). A few nights ago I jolted awake, electrified by the shock that my book is absurdly long for any agent to consider. When I initially embarked on writing it, I was intent on finding an agent, so I corralled it to a standard length. When I decided I would eventually self-publish instead, word counts no longer mattered. Now that I’m giving the agent search another chance, it matters a lot. The standard wisdom is that instead of my tome’s hulking 170,00 words (in my defense, I’d planned to serialize it and still might, if I don’t find an agent), debut authors of literary fiction have better chances if they keep to 95,000-ish words.
