So, do forewards count towards the word length of a piece? Say I had a 59k word story and wrote a 1k forward. Would that make the story novel length all of a sudden (assuming we’re going by 60k+ being a novel)? And if I write a foreward, should I send it with a manuscript to the publisher?
Not really sure what you mean by foreword here. Do you mean a prologue, where it’s part of the actual story but comes before chapter 1? Or are you talking about a true foreword that’s something nonfiction, like commentary from the author about the book?
Either, really. I’m curious about both but I was more interested in a true forwards.
If it’s a prologue, it counts toward the story’s wordcount and would definitely be sent to the publisher.
If it’s an actual foreword (which is the correct term, as in “word coming before”), then it probably wouldn’t count toward the wordcount of the story itself. As far as whether to send it or not… that would probably depend on what the foreword contains, I would think. I’ve usually seen forewords included in anthologies of various authors, as an introduction, or in nonfiction or memoir or something other than regular fiction. Most of the time if the author has something to say about their novel, it’s included as an afterword or an author’s note or whatever, and comes after the main body of the story (and that also wouldn’t count toward the wordcount of the story, because it’s not actually part of the story itself). If we’re just talking about acknowledgments from the author at the end, thanking people who helped with the book and so on, that wouldn’t be sent with the manuscript but would be added during the editing/publication process later on.