Interview Today at SisterWriters blog

Today I have my very first interview at the SisterWriters Blog.

So, in place of today's post, you can hop over there and take a peek.

Thank you all,
Linda

Word Count II

Now for electronic word count.

Here's the only explanation I have for figuring out electronic word count. It comes from the free course Roses Write Fifty Books that sisters Delilah Devlin and Elle James of Roses Colored Glasses give every year.

b) If your targeted publisher uses the computer word count, you have to know how many words you average per page. To figure that out, open a document you are working on that is near completion (can be a fully fleshed-out chapter). Check the word count (in MS Word you go to "Tools" then "Word Count"). Take that number and divide by the number of pages in the document. That will give you your words per page. When you look at the publisher page count, say, 50,000 words, you divide 50,000 words by your personal words per page number to get the number of pages you have to write to complete that story.

OK, now I have a WIP that MS word says has 20,031 words in 60 pages, so my words per page is 333.85, or 334. So, if my publisher wanted 50,000 words, I would have to write 150 pages.

Now, I'm not sure if this calculation includes the first page of a chapter, which usually starts partway down the page. If it does, it assumes that the first page of a chapter also contains 334 words, even though this page is not completely filled with type.

Author Monica Burns also has a Word Count spreadsheet on her website that tracks progress on your WIP in both Courier and Times New Roman. You plug in your word count, and it tells you how many pages you have.

I find her spreadsheet a little confusing, because in this spreadsheet, TNR assumes 285 words per page and Courier assumes 250 words per page

Now, if I use this TNR calculation, my 20,031 word TNR manuscript would contain 70 pages. So I think I'll stick with the Roses calculation.

I'm confused, too. As in all cases, check your publisher's Submission Guidelines.

Thank you all,

Linda

Word Count I

How simple can a concept be?

Word count is the number of words in your document. Microsoft Word, which I use, has a handy dandy little tool that counts the number of words in my manuscript. And I use that count when writing to an agent or publisher.

Wrong. Word count, as strange as it seems, is not necessarily the actual number of words in your manuscript. For paper, word count's meaning is mangled to mean how many vertical lines can fit on a page. Publishers want to know how many sheets of paper they need to print your story.

For example:

"Hi, there. How are you?"

"Hi, yourself. I'm fine."

And

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. These are the times that try men's souls. Today is the first day of the rest of your life

Have exactly the same word count. Why? Because both snippets take up two vertical lines on the page.

The print industry standard is a one inch margin on all sides, twenty-five lines per page, Courier or Courier New 12 point, widow and orphan control off. A page printed in this manner is considered to have 250 words on the page, or ten words per line.

Oh, and you start a new chapter about two-thirds of the way down the page, and this page also counts as 250 words, even though there are NOT twenty-five lines of type of the page.

Now, my example up there is not done in Courier New 12 point, and it does not have the one inch margins and is not spaced twenty-five lines per page, but you get the idea.

I write using Times New Roman (TNR) 12 point, but with everything else as above. When I want to see how many pages it is in Courier New, I just Select All, then change the font.

Look at all this information. Takes up only a half page of explanation, but it took forever for me to find it out. I wish somewhere they had something to explain to us newbie writers how to format our manuscripts. A caveat is always look at the submission guidelines. The trouble is, I did look there, but those guidelines didn't explain this stuff, either.

I wrote my first WIP in single space, TNR 12, until I had 100,000 words by the Word word counter. Formatted in the print format above, my WIP came out as 120,000 words. I've read that transferring electronic word count to paper word count can increase the word count by 15% to 20%. In my case, it was 20%. I could have saved myself a lot of work if I had known what I was doing.

And now that I've thoroughly confused you with paper word count, next week we'll talk about e-pub word count.

Thank you all,

Linda

Contests II

As you read this entry and look at the titles of my previous posts (please do!), you may ask, Where is Contests I?

Contests I is cleverly disguised as And How Did You Become an Author?, the story of how my losing contest entry, Lady of the Stars, got e-published.

I’ve entered other contests, and I haven't won. Close sometimes, but close is like the Olympic athlete who comes in fourth—not good enough, even if the spread is only a few points. I’ve received some very high scores, but not high enough.

Sure, I'd like to win a contest. Winning would feel very good. Having an agent or publisher read my partial would be even better.

What’s going on? Is my stuff junk, or does it not fit the scoring?

I've heard various comments about contests. Here’s author Elizabeth Boyle’s take on contests on Romantic Inks. Hint: She isn’t too crazy about them.

Some say winning means you can write what a contest wants. A contest looks at the story elements. You may have a great story, but it may not be saleable, or saleable to New York. As an example, I know a write who finaled in the Royal Ascot, the contest held by the Beau Monde section of the RWA. Her agent couldn't sell her book to New York because the publishers didn't want a blind heroine. Her book, Blind Fortune by Joanna Waugh, was e-published in July by Cerridwen Press.

Others swear by contests, and yes, some contest winners do get published. Most of the Golden Heart winners do. But then, the Golden Heart is a well-known and respected contest. There are tons of other contests out there, and how do you tell?

Try seeing who the final judges will be. If there's one who you want to see your work, try.

Contests are also good for getting a critique. Again, you have to be careful. I've received some great critiques. And I've received at least one terrible one that was essentially fill-in-the-numbers on the score sheet. A waste of money, that contest was.

But I wouldn't go overboard. I know one writer who boasted she'd just finaled on a particular manuscript for the eighth time. Eighth time? At about $25 a pop, contests aren't cheap. If I had finaled even once, I would have sent the manuscript out to an agent or editor.

Because, after all, writing is not about winning contests, it's about getting published. Winning a contest can feel very good, but it's not a book contract.

Thank you all,

Linda