80,000 Word Count

Jumping in to say that mentions on the debuts of authors from greater than 5 or 10 years ago (Patterson, Rowling, etc) may be redundant. Book sizes tend to be fashionable to an era. I would only ever see high literature in the 50-60k range for adult novels. All based on shelf space and transport of physical books!

Roxxsmom said:

If someone hasn't linked this yet, it offers word count ranges for different genres and age demographics for US markets. It's a few years old now, so it's probably not exact. The annotation suggests that things may actually be a bit more relaxed now. Not all publishers are the same either. Some like books on the longer end for a given genre, some have firmer word count limits. I believe agents tend to prefer that happy medium that would appeal to the largest number of potential markets.

http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-word-counts-and-novel-length.html

Another place to get some information is on Querytracker, where you can look at offers of representation in different genres. Approximate word counts are listed for most of them, so you can get an idea how many books of different lengths were picked up by agents in your genre over the past few years.

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This is all very helpful, as I have been worrying about my current projected word count (about 80K). Thank you!

This is another good guide to word count in different genres, from 2012: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor...ovels-and-childrens-books-the-definitive-post

One thing I have noticed is that a lot of new books, in the literary, contemporary, and suspense genres especially, are very short by the standards I read about on word count advice. (Unlike fantasy/sci-fi, which appear to be growing in size, and more like books in the UK in the forties and fifties, where paper rationing was an issue.)
Off the top of my head, I can think of two Booker prize winners who write short, remembering that the Booker panel only awards to what it considers novels, not novellas. Julian Barnes' 'The Sense of an Ending' (2011) is only about 45,00 words. Ian McEwan 'Amsterdam' (1998) less than 50,000, which is a similar amount to his more recent books, 'Saturday', 'On Chesil Beach' etc.
Possibly as a result of the growth in the e-book market, I get the feeling that word count has become less of an issue than it once was.
That said, a 50,000 word Fantasy novel is probably pushing your luck, as is a 120,000 word thriller.

GraemeTollins said:

Possibly as a result of the growth in the e-book market, I get the feeling that word count has become less of an issue than it once was.

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I think you're right, but I think it's working both ways. In romance, novellas are becoming more popular but so are longer novels. Readers either want a quick read they can devour on the commute/before bed, but if they're investing time in a full novel they want to spend longer with the couples they love.

Roxxsmom said:

If someone hasn't linked this yet, it offers word count ranges for different genres and age demographics for US markets. It's a few years old now, so it's probably not exact. The annotation suggests that things may actually be a bit more relaxed now. Not all publishers are the same either. Some like books on the longer end for a given genre, some have firmer word count limits. I believe agents tend to prefer that happy medium that would appeal to the largest number of potential markets.

http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-word-counts-and-novel-length.html

Another place to get some information is on Querytracker, where you can look at offers of representation in different genres. Approximate word counts are listed for most of them, so you can get an idea how many books of different lengths were picked up by agents in your genre over the past few years.

Click to expand...

Wow, great info in that article! I've been trying to figure out how much I need to trim off my current novel and this pretty much clears it up! Thanks!

My twisted fairy tale satire manuscript hits 63,000 and I've not had anyone raise a flag so far with my submissions of it. I think it truly depends on the genre/style. For example, I have two young adult science fiction/fantasy manuscripts I'm working on and they run longer 85k-95k but it seems longer young adult is more acceptable nowadays.

My mother, who is a more voracious reader than I am, is constantly complaining how books have gotten so short nowadays. Mind you, she primarily seeks out inexpensive self-published books (vary rarely will she pay $8+ to download a trade published book to her Kindle). I have seen this sentiment echoed elsewhere around the internet. Honestly, I have a growing suspicion many readers these days feel bigger = more bang for their buck. Eight years ago, a 100,000+ word debut author manuscript would have been instantly rejected on word count alone by agents. I recall Twilight's length was a freakin' big deal. Now? Not much of an issue. People will buy long books, and they'll buy short books too, if the writing and story is good.

TereLiz said:

This seems more appropriate for MG than YA, IMO.

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For the most part I'd agree. I've never handed in a YA novel at less than 90K. That said, I write paranomal/fantasy/scifi, and contemporary YA does tend to run a bit shorter.

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but every fantasy novel I've ever written has ended almost exactly at 80,000. One is paranormal romance and the other is fantasy romance. If your novel is a kind of romance but speculative, what is a good word goal? Is 80,000 too short? I sure hope not!

Jeff C. Stevenson said:

And regardless of what we all say, the story takes as many words as it takes to tell it.

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This. While there are surely "ideal" ranges of word count for various genres, you're far better off querying a book outside those ranges than querying something which has had important parts cut out or unneeded padding added in order to be the "right" length.

Based on my research, 80k-100k seems about right, even for YA. Beyond that, seems too risky for new authors. For adult fantasy and sci-fi you could probably get away with more. It does seem like those really higher word counts won't work for new authors, and agents aren't really going to risk it. I know in the past publishers agents just split up work from fantastic authors though. Not sure if that rings true now though.

Testome said:

Based on my research, 80k-100k seems about right, even for YA. Beyond that, seems too risky for new authors. For adult fantasy and sci-fi you could probably get away with more. It does seem like those really higher word counts won't work for new authors, and agents aren't really going to risk it. I know in the past publishers agents just split up work from fantastic authors though. Not sure if that rings true now though.

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This doesn't follow what I've seen from major SF&F publishers at all. 100k is more like the lower end of acceptable/normal word count. I'm basing this on the few publishers who give specific word count guidelines (Baen at 100-130k, DAW was just "over 80k" with no upper end last I looked) and on the lengths of debut novels coming out. Obviously page count isn't a perfect reflection of word count due to formatting, but I feel safe saying the 500-600+ page debuts I've seen were a hell of a lot more than 100k words, probably more like 150-180k depending on formatting.

I do agree with what someone up-thread said about adult SF&F trending longer in recent years. I suspect this may be because people looking for shorter, simpler, fast-paced fantasy have switched over to reading YA, so the adult lines are targeting more towards readers like me who prefer long, complex, slower-paced stories. Just a guess, but it would make sense.

ETA: Contemporary fiction definitely trends way shorter, though. It's not unusual to see 200-250 page contemporary books (probably 50-70k words), which is something I literally NEVER see in SF&F, though there are plenty of 400+ page (so 100k+ words) contemporary books being published too. But there's definitely more of a strict upper end there than in fantasy, and a much greater willingness to look at/publish shorter books.

Throne of the Crescent Moon is really short. Under 300 pages in hardback. Which surprised me. But it has a fairly unique angle even for SF&F.

My agent took me on for a project that was about 94k words, but he has since pitched other projects I've written that were shorter/longer. Some of it will depend on the book in question.

It depends on a lot of different factors. My novel was originally 52,000 words and the two agents I asked about it said that word count was fine.

Thanks everyone! This was really helpful