My book is too short. (?)

In the past couple of weeks or so, I have accomplished the goals I have set for myself. 

• I have written or edited some every day
• I have updated my blogs
• I have tweeted 
• I have researched and submitted to Literary Agents
• I have educated myself about some of the techniques scammers use to rip-off writer

And,

• I have researched the writing/publishing business to the point that I may despair.

The reason for my despair is that my book is, well, too short. I mean, it is too short to be considered for publications in the traditional sense.

I just went through and did a mini-edit. I took out an entire character who plays a small role in the beginning of the book and never makes another appearance. It kind of felt a teensy bit like murder.

It had to be done.

It make my book even shorter

The solution seems simple: "Your book is too short. Add stuff. Put in more descriptions. Weave in a subplot or expand on a currently existing subplot."

The problem is, I don't feel the story needs any of that. I feel that "padding" the book, simply for the sake of reaching an arbitrary word count, will make it bogged down and tiresome.

Now, I have considered that this is, perhaps, short-sighted on my part. I am very open to the idea that I may need to go back to this book, re-work it, and "beef it up" for marketability.

However, I have come to the realization that I am pretty darn sick of this book. I am way too close to this project right now to be objective. Trying to re-write at this point would be a mistake. I need to have a bit of distance from the work.

Where does this leave me?

I have determined that I will continue to shop this book, too-short-for-its-genre or no. After all, there are some "needle in a haystack" options out there for me. Meanwhile, I am going to keep working on editing another 2 projects. One new project is Young Adult, and  the other is New Adult, both genres that support a much lighter word count than typical commercial fiction.

And, I am going to keep on writing. I enjoy writing from flash fiction prompts very much. It is so satisfying to have something done so quickly. I will share the ones appropriate for self-publication on my Author's bog, and will submit others to literary magazines and other publications. It will all help someday (hopefully!), to actually give me something to put in my "Author's Bio".

I will find a home for my little book, either now, or in the future. Perhaps I will end up self-publishing all three books in the series one day. There are so many voices out there lauding the merits of self-publishing, but the thought of all that is involved with carrying the full-weight of promotions makes me feel queasy.

 

Let me tell you, it is great to come to this blog and see your supportive comments. They encourage me to keep going. Thank you!