My books are too long

Apparently, A Place of Safety is turning out to be way too long a novel, according to the publishing world. Normally, a novel is 60,000-100,000 words. For the whole damn thing. I'm close to 290,000 for these two volumes, with another 70,000+ coming for volume 3. Maybe that's why I couldn't get anyone interested in them--publisher or agent.

BookLife did call Derry a long book. But in hardcover it looks right and I don't think I could have cut any more than I did without hurting the story. Same for New World For Old. It's pretty much registering at 145,000 words, no matter how much I do. And that is fine with me.

However, it does limit me in ways I wasn't expecting. Some book groups won't let me set Derry up with them due to length. And it is kind of expensive to buy in hardcover. $32.95 in the US. New World For Old with be just as expensive, if not more.

It's just, I do not want to rush Brendan's life due to some arbitrary limitations on book size. He has three segments in which to tell his story--all three of which have been written, with one published, and one still on track to come out around my birthday. The last should be done by the end of the year. And that will be it, for him. No more space to expand upon his life, as if it's not expansive, right now.

I'm 2/3 done with draft 7 of NWFO and am back to feeling comfortable with how it reads. Brendan's more contemplative in this part. More introspective. And he's actually kind while also being as angry and wary as a feral cat...and unwilling to be trampled upon. He's fighting to regain control of his life and finding it's not so very easy.

And that makes him angrier.