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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Mock Up of News from Dead Mule Swamp

I was just fooling around yesterday. I have requested a price quote for printing from the same company that printed North Country Cache. We had some problems with the cover of that, but after that was settled, otherwise, they did a quality job.

This would be much cheaper- no color pictures, no pictures at all. At any rate, asking for a quote is free!

Meanwhile, because they accept PDF format for printing submissions, just for fun I set up News from Dead Mule Swamp in a 5.5 x 8.5 inch format, with a font I like, headers and page numbers-- just how it would be if printed.

Then I printed it out myself and stapled it all together. Nice size, nice font size... I like it.

In either this format, or 6 x 9 inches with a slightly larger font, it came out to be about 130 pages. Well, I knew it was short.

What do you think about it? Would you enjoy a little mystery you could probably read in one evening, or would you discount it as uninteresting unless it were longer? Take the poll, and help me decide if it needs more text.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, Shark, sorry I didn't take the poll, but I couldn't find MY answer: if your book NEEDS to be 130 pages, then 130 pages are perfect. You can say so many things in 130 pages, and so little in a 1000. Anyway, I think as a fellow writer, I'd say: you're the creator, you did the "job" in 130 pages, so I trust you.
I send you my best wishes of success for your News from Dead Mule Swamp!

Karen, author of "My Funny Dad, Harry" said...

I agree with Dieter here. I think padding a book just makes it uninteresting and boring. If you can get it done in just 130 pages, then so be it. Perhaps you could lengthen it by better character development. I just finished a book that seemed thrown together without much depth other than the plot. The characters all seemed under developed to say the least. Just a suggestion.

Ann said...

I have to agree with what the other two said. I've read some books and after several pages wondered when they were going to get to the point. It takes me a while to get through a book so 130 pages would work for me.

Glynis Peters said...

I tried to take the poll but couldn't. Anyway 130 is fine by me.