Word Counts

This is a question I get a lot:

What is the average word count for the different genres? What would you consider too long/too short?

First let me say, the word count on a book is less important than tight, good writing. You need as many words in your book as it takes to tell a good story. Of course, you can go overboard with this. A 200,000 word romance is going to have a hard time finding a publisher, as is a 7,000 word historical fiction. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts.

There is no hard and fast rule on word count. It will differ between publishers and between authors. For example, books for children usually top out around 40,000-50,000 words. But how long was JK Rowling’s longest book? The Order of the Phoenix was 257,154 words.

Debut authors usually fall on the shorter end of the spectrum, while established authors can get away with longer books.

If you’ve got a series, especially if it’s very popular, the later books can be longer. For example, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight logged in at 544 pages (already quite a bit longer than your average teen novel) with Breaking Dawn at 756 pages.

Here are a few general guidelines:

  • Short novel (children) = 10,000 to 40,000
  • Medium novel (teens) = 50,000 to 75,000
  • Adult novel = 80,000 to 120,000

As for differences in genres:

  • Young Children = 10,000 to 40,000
  • Middle Grade = 25,000 to 40,000
  • Young Adult = 45,000 to 80,000
  • General/Commercial = 80,000 to 100,000
  • Historical = 85,000 to 100,000
  • Horror = 80,000 to 100,000
  • Literary = 80,000 to 120,000
  • Mysteries = 80,000 to 100,000; cozies & hobby mysteries generally a little shorter, while thillers are a little longer
  • Romance = 80,000 to 100,000; category/imprint romances (like Harlequin, etc.) are often quite a bit shorter
  • Sci-Fi/Fantasy = 90,000 to 120,000; epic or high fantasy is usually on the longer end
  • Westerns = 50,000 to 80,000

Here are some approximate for page counts:

  • 40,000 = 160 pages
  • 62,500 = 250 pages*
  • 75,000 = 300 pages*
  • 90,000 = 360 pages
  • 100,000 = 400 pages
  • 125,000 = 500 pages**

As you can see, this is NOT an exact science.

*Best range for new authors

**Need to be an experienced author or really, really good to publish a novel that’s over 125,000 words.

How Short Is To Short?

I know you aren’t posting as often lately, but I have a question that I just haven’t really found an answer. [I’m trying to do better…]

I’ve looked around for ideas of how many words a typical novel is. One blog entry I read that a new author typically falls between 62,000 and 75,000 words. I’m currently at almost 35,000 words. I’ve looked through my WIP and can see I areas that I guess could fill in maybe 15,000 words (hopefully). At that point, hopefully in editing, I could find some areas to fill in. But what if I only hit about say 50,000 words. Is that too short to consider? I should add the WIP would be considered in the romance or chic lit. My biggest part of the question is what is too short for a novel? Is there a number that most publishers like new authors to hit near? Thanks.

How many words should your book have? The easy answer is: as many as it takes to tell the story.

And that’s true.

But what is needed to tell the story and what’s not is based on opinions. So here are some general rule-of-thumb guidelines.

Genres for the adult reader (including romance and chick lit), are generally 80,000 to 100,000 words.

Genres for older children (both Middle Grade and Young Adult) or for certain types of inspirational novels, are generally 50,000 to 90,000 words.

In my opinion, 50,000 words puts you in the novella category and publishing contracts for novellas are rare(er) these days. I’d suggest adding a subplot or two to expand your story and getting it nearer that 80K mark.

If you have a particular publisher in mind, go check their website for Submission Guidelines (or something similar) and see if they have recommended word counts for their genres.

For other takes on word counts, visit here and here and here.

YA Word Count

I’m confused on the acceptable maximum word count for Young Adult manuscripts. Different publishers seem to want different things and word count is all over the place. Covenant says they want the word count to be no more than 70,000 (or so I’ve been told), but Deseret Book has specifically told me they have no set word count. Twilight was definitely way over the 70,000 as are the Harry Potter books. Can you give me a good figure for this? Or is it different depending on each genre?

The size of a Middle Grade or Young Adult novel used to be under 40,000 to 70,000 because publishers didn’t believe children and teens would read “big” books. Twilight and Harry Potter sort of blew that theory out of the water. Now, publishers are willing to look at longer books for a young audience.

Write your book. Make it as long as it needs to be to tell the story well. Then start looking for a publisher or agent who will take a YA book at your word count.

That said, if you’re a brand new author, the closer your YA manuscript is to 70-90,000 word count range, the better.

How Long is a Short Story?

What is the max/min words for a short story?

Depends. If you’re writing it for a magazine, a book compilation or a contest, it’s whatever length the editors tell you it is.

Generally speaking, you should be able to read a short story in one sitting. If it’s fewer than 1,000 words, it’s usually considered a short-short or flash fiction. If it hits 20,000 words, it will probably be called a novella. Anywhere between those two, you get the label short story.

Most often, a short story is between 2,000 to 5,000 words.