Into the Fire

As you know, since I started writing actual novels, I’ve become somewhat of a student of readers. When you subtract the readers who are writers from the group, you learn some interesting points about “pure” readers. Those of you who stop here often know I’ve posted my thoughts and descriptions here of “the average reader” and that they differ significantly from writers who read.

Today I’m addressing the technical aspects of books. First of all: templates. This refers to the appearance of the words on the page. If you’re a reader only, chances are you won’t pay much attention to how close or how “openly” spaced the words are on the page unless you have sight problems. If the print is too small and the words appear very close together in a “tight template”, you will immediately notice how difficult the book might be to read. Most novels that run around 300 pages don’t use a tight template. Honestly, I don’t know the precise term for the types of templates, I only know that I had eleven choices for my second novel The Famous One. Since my word count was higher than the preferred word counts for many contemporary novels, I chose the tightest one which afforded more words per page to keep the page count down.

I’m convinced that most readers don’t make a conscious assessment of words per page in relation to page counts. I think they make their choices based on their interest in the back cover copy, the cover itself, and the price of the book. Perhaps now more than ever the cost of the book plays into selection. Maybe if a reader is contending between two novels which hold an equal interest for them, and they open up each book to look inside, as they compare them, they might notice that the more expensive of the two has a tighter template. Only then will they consider which novel might have the greater value as far as reading “material” is concerned, or perhaps they will understand why the one with the tighter template costs more. Technically speaking, if they purchase that one, they’re getting more bang for their buck, but it won’t matter if they wind up not liking the story.

Since I mostly write longer novels and have self-published two of the seven, I’m well aware of how much they cost to produce (sans marketing, payroll, etcetera). Using a tighter template was one way I could keep the price down. But, alas, most readers don’t consider such seemingly insignificant things as templates when they look at the cost of a novel. So when looking at my second novel, for example, they notice that it’s only 364 pages and brand new it sells at the Amazon discount price of $17.15. The full retail price is $21.99. What they won’t see without comparing the inside of it to another novel of approximately 350 pages is that mine contains 141,000+ words compared to most likely a maximum of120,000 words and usually closer to 90,000. The thickness of a novel can be deceiving because if the trim size (the dimensions of the length and width) is smaller and the template leaves a lot of “white” spacing, then the word count is probably around the 70-80,000 word range for novels.

And all of this is really inconsequential if you prefer short novels.

The point being: the pricing of novels can depend on how many words get put on a page.

Father, thank you for the words we use to tell the stories you have for us to write. Couldn’t do it without you. May our words be pleasing to you above all. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.