This is K.M. Lylem. and you are listening to the 449th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast.

I finished my first full edit for my portal fantasy sequel Dreambreaker this week.

And I had to laugh this morning when I happened to look through a post I'd written last summer

saying I was shooting for 120,000 words on this book.

Ha ha, a year later, here I am, having ended up with 220,000 words.

I was hoping to cut 20,000 in this first edit, but only managed 8. That's the bad news. The other bad news, which I guess is also kind of good

news, is that I plot and write pretty tight these days, which is good for the writing and

bad when you want to trim word count.

So if this edit is any indication, this may end up being my longest book yet.

Still not Brandon Sanderson or Patrick Rothfus level link.

And as I always say, a book needs to be as long as it needs to be.

So, on to the next edit.

Before we continue to today's topic, I want to mention that this episode is sponsored

by Damanza the cover design company who I've trusted to do all my covers for many

years now. It has taken endless blood, sweat, and tears, but you've done it.

You've written your Magnum Opus a book that you're truly proud of and that you want to get

in front of as many eyes as possible.

After all, a book without someone to read it

is just a stack of rather expensive paper in ink.

And that's what Damanza.com does.

They get people reading. Having designed thousands of book covers, including those of New York

Times and USA Today bestsellers, they understand that people do judge books by their covers,

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