Should each book in the series be a similar length?
A very short question.
I'm writing a trilogy. Book 1 was 88,000 words, but book 2 is probably only going to be 75,000 words. That's over 10,000 words less.
Should I find a way to make it longer?
Is there anything to gain by making each book in a series a similar length?
Is 70-75,000 words okay for length? Too short compared to the first?
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2 answers
No, it doesn't have to be.
Your example: 88k vs 75k. Those are already very similar word-counts. A reader will most likely not tell the difference when reading them.
My example: Alternate history / Historical Fiction. Part 1 will just be the intro that summarizes real history up to the point where alternate history begins. Part 1 exists to ground the story in context and familiarize my audience with a particular nation's culture (and history!) so that future decisions and plot will make sense.
Anyway, Part 1 will probably be 10k words or less which will prolly be 3 times shorter than any other Parts, maybe even 5 times or more. But it makes sense to divide the Parts this way and there is no way you would force yourself to extend the intro just for the sake of matching a future Part, which is prolly a more plot-filled Part.
(10k words is still a pretty long "intro" ofc.) But in my case it will work because the intro is sort of like a story all its own taking a relatively straight ascent to the climax where a major character gets shot. Then Part 2 begins.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27036. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Artistically, each book should be as long as it needs to be.
Commercially, there are certain limits determined by salability and risk. A thin book may not be perceived by the reader as value for money and so may not sell. A fat book costs more to produce and so represents a bigger risk for the publisher. So publishers generally want books to fall between the Scylla of unsalability and the Charybdis of risk. Exactly where that is for new authors in a particular genre at any given time is something you probably need to research with an agent of publisher.
However, the range between unsalable and too risky changes greatly if you already have a successful book. If you prove you have an audience willing to snap up a few hundred thousand copies, then both salability and risk issue are substantially reduced and you have a wider range of length to play with. So the answer to you question about your second book really comes down to how well your first book sells.
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