Lots of writers dream of writing a “big book.”<\/p>\n
It’s a book that gets advertised and reviewed everywhere.<\/p>\n
A book that people are reading on trains, planes, subway, and listening to in their cars on cross country trips or morning commutes.<\/p>\n
A book that everyone sees at airport book racks. A book that makes all the best seller lists and prompts speculation about who’s going to star in the movie.<\/p>\n
A book that becomes part of the cultural conversation, even briefly. A book that gets the author onto countess chat and interview shows across the country.<\/p>\n
A book that seems to be everywhere you look and that all your friends are talking about.\u00a0 A book that book groups can’t wait to dive into.<\/p>\n
What special talent does it take? What magic do you need?<\/p>\n
Well, it’s crucial that the book is physically<\/em> big.<\/p>\n 500-600 pages is big book big. It tells readers that they’re buying something the publisher has invested lots of time and money in. Think The Historian<\/em>, Mystic River<\/em>, The Secret History, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo<\/em>.<\/p>\n I know of a writer who was doing well with a series and was told very frankly by an editor that to break out, to have a big<\/em> book, that writer had to write books that were much longer. This is a true story. And kind of sad, because I thought that writer’s series was terrific.<\/p>\n Then I read the author’s breakout book which, you guessed it, became a big book with a star-studded movie and all the trimmings.<\/p>\n It felt overwritten and padded, easily 100 pages too long, if not more.<\/p>\n But the strategy worked. This author is now wealthy and famous, though not a better writer.\u00a0 Just a bigger one.<\/p>\n Does size matter? Yes, if you want to make it big in traditional publishing.<\/p>\n Lev Raphael is the author of 25 books in many genres, including The Edith Wharton Murders<\/a><\/em>, his first book to be reviewed in The New York Times<\/em>.\u00a0 It’s well under 500 pages.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lots of writers dream of writing a “big book.” It’s a book that gets advertised and reviewed everywhere. A book that people are reading on trains, planes, subway, and listening to in their cars on cross country trips or morning commutes. A book that everyone sees at airport book racks. A book that makes all … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[298,497,484,483,482,148,518,481,291,530,503,496,480,384,479,529,290,495],"class_list":["post-1570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-for-writers","tag-advice-for-writers","tag-authors","tag-best-seller-lists","tag-best-sellers","tag-book-groups","tag-book-reviewing","tag-book-reviews","tag-breakout-books","tag-editors","tag-interview-shows","tag-media","tag-publishing","tag-publishing-advice","tag-reviews","tag-series","tag-talk-shows","tag-the-writers-life","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1570"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5466,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions\/5466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n