Frank Herbert's Dune was famously rejected by dozens of publishers before Chilton (the automobile manual people) published it in 1965. But the story had been serialized in Analog and had won a Hugo Award - wouldn't that have been enough to get it a publisher with more of a reputation for fiction publishing? What about Dune was different than (say) Starship Troopers - serialized in F&SF and then published by Putnam? Was the length of Dune a factor, or was book publication of previously serialized novels a harder sell in the 1960s than I had thought?
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5Honestly, it's probably entirely down to size. Look at most genre books published in the 60s and 70s, and they're 5 or 6 signatures long. Looks like Dune was 14 signatures long in its initial printing.– DavidWCommented Nov 6 at 0:34
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1About that time, a publisher might prefer that authors whose proposed books were over a certain length, determined in part with the limitations of the presses used by the printer, would divide the content into two or more volumes. Series make more money than a single book. I used to work with mainstream authors; they were pressured to sign multi-volumes contracts - sometimes for one book "chopped up" and sometimes a series, perhaps with the same characters. I know one successful author who refused to sign such a contract - made a lot less money, but less deadline headaches.– PatWagnerDenverCommented Nov 6 at 1:01
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4@Buzz carterprinting.com/glossary/what-book-signature For most older mass-market books, it was 32 pages (16 physical leafs). It's why a lot of 1960s paperbacks had 160 or 192 pages.– DavidWCommented Nov 6 at 1:20
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7People don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere.– Paul D. WaiteCommented Nov 6 at 13:13
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5Speaking as a micro publisher, By the time Herbert was shopping Dune he had exactly one book (previously in Astounding Science Fiction) under his belt and the two Amazing Stories serializations. Then he shows up with this massive book (by the standards of the day). Publishers are the investment arm of the book industry and investing in a large book from a fundamentally unproven author hosting a fairly complex relationship with politics and religion in post WWII/early Cold War America was (IMO) a huge risk. That it took time doesn't surprise me.– JBHCommented Nov 6 at 16:38
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Yes, length, mainly, and its consequences. From Brian Herbert's DREAMER OF DUNE: [After noting agent Lurton Blassingame's view that the three sections of the story should be one book]: "Book publishers arrived at Lurton's opinion on their own. This was one story, they said, not three. But they felt it was far too long at 215,000 words and would require immense printing costs and a very high hardcover price for the time, in excess of five dollars. No science fiction novel had ever commanded a retail price that high." But there was more. "Book publishers also felt the story would confuse readers. It was too slow-moving and complex, filled with strange, difficult words. Rejections poured in. . . . Most editors couldn't get past the first hundred pages." Twenty-three publishers turned it down. (Tor trade paperback, pp. 175-76)
