What a publisher looks for
Beyond my reach A couple of nights ago, during a bad night, I was thinking of a question I was asked many times when I was a writer , could you write a novel ? The answer to the question was a challenge for me for many years, when I was writing, I did come close to the 40, 000 word count which a publisher sets for a novel . Twice, I got close, but stopped short, why? I thought what is the point of going on, when there is a good chance nobody will read the story ? I did a rough calcualtion, it is impossible to give an exact figure as writers vary how many words per page they write, to reach 40,000 words, the minimum number of pages I would need to write is about 150. My best is the length of a novella (20,000 - 30,000 words), even that would take a mammoth effort for me these days.