Yes, hello? This is Marcella, phoning in her blog post because she spent the entire day - and I do mean the ENTIRE day - in the ER with an ill parent. Who is going to be just fine, btw. But the day's allotment of brain cells have been consumed and all that's left is the siren song of sleep.
So here. Photo. Just to prove that I do occasionally take pictures of something other than cats.
As for book length - listen. If you self pub, do you as far as word counts/book length go. Readers will let you know right quick if they feel you're messing with expectation.
If you're aiming for a traditional house, check their guidelines for length requirements and stick to them.
During my second ever RWA conference, I pitched a book to an editor. She asked the word count. I gave it. 120k words. She said, "I can't publish that!" Turns out, bookstore shelf space is designed with mass market paperbacks in mind. A 100k word book in mass market is about an inch thick. X number of those books can fit cover out on the shelf. Anything more than that and a book store is going to have to stock fewer of your books or give up shelf space. You can guess how that math is going to go. Granted. This conversation took place before self publishing was a thing. Yes. I am that old. Hush.
Trad print houses still have to worry about things like printed book footprint.
E-pubs and self-pubs can monkey around a little with length. Pixels have pretty tiny footprints. Feetprints? They're small.
Yeah. I'm going to bed.
