The Rogue King: bouncing up to the 61,000 mark … again

You all know I’m planning to self-publish The Rogue King Saga as four books. This had led me to a new kind of obsession with pages and layouts.

When I first started into this self-publishing adventure, I based everything on the word count total I had. This led me to assume the books would be a modest little set. Maybe four lots of 58k. Not bad when you add it all up and get around 232k. And, according to Createspace, the way I have my 5×8 paperback formatted makes that 58k about 180 pages, which I don’t actually mind. I’ve got mass market paperbacks that aren’t much bigger and a few books of the same dimensions with similar page counts as well as some close to it with bigger type or more space. (See? Obsessed I am.)
Of course, 5×8 is not a size I’d personally go for, but it’s very close to the mass market I prefer having, both for stacking purposes and for reading.

And, yes, my obsession has led me to routinely compare my novel to already published books … at least when it comes to size and appearance. It helps me imagine how it will appear as I refuse to pay for postage on something which hasn’t been through the final edit or gotten its new cover yet.

Yes! A new cover! Before it’s even published. And I’m all nervous and excited (nervocited?) to see what Ros Kovac comes up with cover-wise. Just thinking about it gets my stomach all in knots.

How the first page will apparently look once it’s printed. You’ll have to imagine the other 197 pgs

You’ll notice I’m talking about word counts in the fifties here, yet the title clearly states 61k. But the thing is, I’d like the whole series to be around the same size if it’s at all doable and the first book will set my expectations for the other three. Right now, that book is going through the last edit I’ll ever do before sending it to a professional and, although I’ve still seven more chapters to go, it’s managed to gain 3k. That’s an average of about a hundred words per chapter.

Then I looked at the three other books (obsessed, remember?) and see the last of them lags by 6k. O_O A part of me wonders how it got that far out of whack. However will it catch up? It was easy adding words when I broke the story up, more chapters slipped themselves into each section like they were meant to be there all along. From the time I split it into four, it has gained it’s current 30k extra no trouble.

But I’ve got no more chapters to add. All I can hope for is that the final edit for the others will follow my habit of adding more as I readjust the reading flow.

And, since I’m on about book sizing, 61k is close to 200 pages. That makes it about half an inch thick.

I’m happy with that.