How to Make Your Novel Longer if Your Book Isn't Long Enough

       As a writer the first thing that usually happens is you get an idea for a story and then you decide that you want to write a book about it, right?  Now comes the hard part, you have to actually write the book.  It is always easy to start writing a book but to continue writing it day after day is not so easy.  Take it from me, I can't tell you how many books I have started and for whatever reason I would throw it to the side, only to start writing another book.  Does any of this sound familiar to you?

     The reasons I always hear from other writers is that yes they generally can start a book, and can actually finish it, only to find that the book isn't long enough.  This problem is normal for many writers.  In fact, they label this type of a writer as an underwriter.  What makes this hard is that if you are writing your book to be an eBook, what you might not know is that at the time of publishing this book on a book site, it will be compressed, (meaning that the page count you think you have will actually be lesser).  Yes, your story will not have changed, but to save storage on a book site, the site you published your eBook on will appear shorter in length.

     Here's a video explaining this:

     For example:  Let's say your book has 180 pages.  That would seem to be a decent size book, except if you are publishing it as an eBook. In an eBook, it will probably show the number of pages as maybe 110-130 pages long after you publish it.  Which to a reader who is reading your book statistics will not appear too long? (Don't get me wrong, some readers like short reads as long as the price is right). Here is a video below talking about how much you should charge for your eBook.

     So are you struggling with the underwriter's plague?  If so, maybe the video below can help?

     If you're wondering how long your fiction novel should be before publishing it as an eBook, from my own personal experience I think that anything from 250-300+ pages if compressed will make your eBook passable with most readers in the way of story length.  Another thing you can do is check out books online and find the authors who are selling their book in eBook and Paperback book form.  See how many pages are in the paperback, and then check to see how many pages are in the eBook.  This will give you a better idea of your own book size.

     In my next blog entry, I going to address the flipside of this subject and talk about the overwriter and how they can shorten their story.

     So stay tuned!