Earlier
this week I posted a story on my web site for free download. I figured that at
57,000 words it didn’t fully live up to the title of novel. Neither was I
prepared to pad it out simply to make it longer. Padding degrades a story. However,
I decided it would make a suitable web site taster: a way of giving readers a taste
of my style of writing. The next morning my publisher, God bless her, emailed
me and said she had read it, liked it, and wanted to publish it. It made my
day. Not so good for my web readers, of course, because I had to immediately
remove the story from my site.
My
concern about the story was that it was too short to be a proper novel, but my
publisher assures me that the advent of ebooks means any length can now be
accommodated within the publishing industry. I learned from that. I have
another 57,000 word story lying idle on my computer and I need only a week or
two to check it over and give it a last brush and polish before offering it up
for publication. We live in an age when nothing need be wasted.
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