Ding Dong the Book is Done

 The book is done. This draft anyway. It ended up taking a week (really a month) longer than I expected and about fifteen thousand words more than I predicted but it tells a full story now.  At 134749 words, it's only likely to grow once beta readers and the editor get ahold of it.

Beta readers tend to ask me to add a lot more words when it comes to this series as opposed to other series. For instance, I ended up adding about 10,000 words if not more to The Wind's Call. If that were to happen, this would end up being in the top three longest books I've written. I think Pathfinder's Way and Wayfarer's Keep would beat this book but not by much.

As an indie writer, I have the flexibility to write books as long as I want. That is a good thing because I can't write a short book to save my life. What many don't understand is that even as an indie writer I still have limitations I have to take into account.

A big part of that is cost. Simply put, a super long book is more costly to produce all around. From editing--my editor charges by the word so a book that is 15,000-20,000 more words is going to cost a couple hundred dollars more to edit. That doesn't even factor in the time. It takes longer for beta readers, editors, and me to read through the book to catch all those little errors which can extend publishing time by quite a bit.

To be honest, neither of those things bother me much. I'd much prefer to tell a full and complete story with all the little details I find fascinating than try to squeeze it all into a shorter length. The biggest issue with a long book--in my mind at least--lies in the print production. The print version is going to be much more costly for the reader. You are the ones who will be paying the higher price if you decide on a print version.  In my opinion, my print books are a little higher in cost to begin so every time a book runs significantly over I feel a little worried.

All this to say, the book is written. It is coming. I plan to go through it one more time before releasing it to beta readers and sending on to the editors. A big part of that read through is figuring out the names for all of the characters--I maybe didn't take the time to do that on the last round.....