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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48061
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48061
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The chances of getting a three volume set of 400,000 word novels by an unknown writer accepted for publication are as near to zero as makes no difference. Such a project would be extremely expensive and represent a huge risk for a publisher. It is not entirely impossible, but it is highly unlikely. Something like 80 to 120 thousand is a more acceptable range, though this varies somewhat by genre and fashion

Notice that the first three books of the Harry Potter series were quite short, while the final four are enormously long. In fact, go to the library and look up the first novels of writers who are famous for long ones, and you will almost always find that their first novels are short. Publishers rarely take a chance on a long first book.

So, working on something shorter is probably a good idea, at least in commercial terms.

But if you have only a limited time to write between family and work responsibilities, self publishing might not be your best choice. Self publishing your book successfully is expensive and time consuming (and almost never succeeds anyway, despite the time and money spent). If you self publish, you won't have time left for new writing, unless you don't promote, in which case you won't sell anything. So write something of publishable length and send it to agents and publishers. And then start on the next one.

For non fictions authors, building a platform (which is publishing speak for a bunch of people who follow your work and would buy your books) is essential, and today that almost inevitably means building a social media presence. But the general consensus of the fiction publishing industry seems to be that a platform makes very little difference to getting your work published. And having work available online is actually a liability if you want to subsequently get it published. At minimum, an agent will tell you to take it down before trying to submit for publication.

The fact of the matter is that for traditional publishing, the online world really hasn't changed how it works very much. It is still a matter of writing a good book of an acceptable length expressing popular opinions on a popular subject in a popular genre and sending it to an agent who will submit it to publishers. Your online profile and activities will generally make little or no difference to this process.

For self publishing, an online profile will make more of a difference, but the hard truth is that it is expensive, time consuming, and almost always fails. And it does not sound like you have the time for it, unless you are willing to stop writing new material.

Original score: 2