Why are publishers imposing a high word count on the novels they publish?

epicdave · Nov 14, 2010

I'm running into this a lot and I'm awfully confused. There seems to be a hard-limit in terms of word count for many publishers and I don't understand why. For space opera sci-fi I can see the need for a high word count, but lots of great sci-fi books are considered novels at 60,000+ words. Just taking a few from my shelf:

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick - 220 pages ~55,000 words
Neuromancer by William Gibson - 271 pages ~ 67,750 words
Blood Music by Greg Bear - 246 pages ~ 61,500 words

So what's the deal? And please, for the love of god, don't just tell me "it's what the market wants"without backing up your contention with evidence. If there really is a connection between novels with higher word count and sales, show me the numbers. Otherwise, in light of the literally hundreds of excellent sci fi books published that are in the 60k to 75k range in terms of word count, I cannot see a compelling argument for "it's what the market wants" when to my mind the market wants quality stories, and not necessarily long ones.

RobJ · Nov 14, 2010

epicdave said:
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick - 220 pages ~55,000 words
Neuromancer by William Gibson - 271 pages ~ 67,750 words
Blood Music by Greg Bear - 246 pages ~ 61,500 words

Those were published a long time ago.

Kitti · Nov 14, 2010

The examples you're citing are from the 70s/80s. I've noticed a trend that most of my older sci-fi (and fantasy) novels are much shorter than current. Can you find any current (within the past 5 years) sci-fi novels that are that short? If so, then see if you can pitch your novel to their editor(s).

mscelina · Nov 14, 2010

*shrug* It's what the market wants, as evidenced by the fact the publishers TELL YOU THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT.

Do they make exceptions? Of course they do. But, your book is less likely to be looked at if you don't meet the word count guidelines.

Dominic de M · Nov 14, 2010

Out of interest, what are the current guidelines?

Amazon top ten best selling science fiction and fantasy of 2009

Palimpsest - 384 pages, say 100,000 words
The Red Tree - 400 pages, say 100,000 words
The Other Lands - 480 pages, say 120,000 words
American Fantastic Tales (boxed set, so perhaps does not count?)
Boneshaker - 416 pages, say 100,000 words
The Other City - 148 pages, say 38,000 words. (Published in the Czech Republic and translated into English)
Yellow Blue Tibia - 336 pages, say 85,000 words
Eclipse 3 - Short Stories
Interfictions 2 - Short Stories
The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart - 464 pages, say 120,000 words.

Does this support or undermine your point - I have no idea
Just trying to be useful!

Shadow_Ferret · Nov 14, 2010

epicdave said:
Otherwise, in light of the literally hundreds of excellent sci fi books published that are in the 60k to 75k range in terms of word count, I cannot see a compelling argument for "it's what the market wants" when to my mind the market wants quality stories, and not necessarily long ones.

Do you have guideline examples?

Because most of the sci-fi publishers I've looked into want something in the 70k to 90k range. Ace for instance wants between 80 and 125k. Apex wants 50k to 100k. Bantam has no word limits. Daw wants 80k+. And Tor just says "novel length" (which is generally accepted at 40,000+, right?).

Those don't seem to be high word counts to me. But to be honest, I haven't seen any books as small as you're describing printed any longer. I'm wondering if that's because all the magazines that used to serialize or self-contain novels have all died.

Or maybe in today's world, nobody reads such short works, or they're possibly just not profitable? It seems novels are getting fatter and fatter and fatter. Look at Harry Potter, each novel outweighed the previous. Maybe today's readers just don't see any value in reading a tiny book. They want to enter the world and stay there for a long time. *shrugs*

mscelina · Nov 14, 2010

40,000 isn't novel length. It's novella length. Novel length is usually considered at 80k+.

efkelley · Nov 14, 2010

Novel length is 50,000 or more. 40,000 would be a novella.

The industry wants longer books because books cost more to produce these days. The thicker book makes readers feel better about picking up the bigger tab. Word processing and modern printing makes much longer novels manageable.

That said, follower the publisher's submission guidelines. If you fall outside the set boundaries, they won't give the book a second glance.

knight_tour · Nov 14, 2010

I've always been bothered by their word count limits seeming too low. I had to cut a lot out of my book that I really want to have in it, just so I could conform to their artificial limit. It seems silly to me given that so many of the best sellers out there are longer than their limits.

Shadow_Ferret · Nov 14, 2010

mscelina said:
40,000 isn't novel length. It's novella length. Novel length is usually considered at 80k+.

Well, I was lazy and used Wiki's definition.

Classification Word count
Novel over 40,000 words
Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story under 7,500 words

Anyway, here, agent Colleen Lindsay has a post on novel word counts.

efkelley said:
The industry wants longer books because books cost more to produce these days. The thicker book makes readers feel better about picking up the bigger tab. Word processing and modern printing makes much longer novels manageable.

Then don't charge $10 for a 60k novel! What's so hard about pricing by word or page count? Small novels have smaller prices. Hell, I'd buy a heckuva lot more novels if they were convenience priced by word count like that instead of pigeonholing them all into $8 or higher.

CheG · Nov 14, 2010

Well when I started my curent WIP I looked up the MINIMUM word counts from publishers just to make sure I could hit those milestones and get my book past 65k.

So I think you may still be OK at 65k+ if your book is falling short of 100K

Julie Worth · Nov 14, 2010

epicdave said:
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick - 220 pages ~55,000 words
Neuromancer by William Gibson - 271 pages ~ 67,750 words
Blood Music by Greg Bear - 246 pages ~ 61,500 words

Multiplying the number of pages in a published book by 250 is not going to give you the word count. Generally, it will be a great underestimate.

Looking up the text stats on Amazon:

A Scanner Darkly--83,000
Neuromancer--79,000
Blood Music--NA

veinglory · Nov 14, 2010

When I pay $7-$10 I want to get a couple of hours of reading out of it. So when I buy novellas I buy them in collections of 3-4 in one volume.

jennontheisland · Nov 14, 2010

Longer books are cheaper overall to produce. And paperbacks tend to have the same price whether they're 80K or 120K. Readers see more for their money in a thicker book.

Yay economics.

This is why novellas are almost never published as standalones any more.

Um, what Veinglory said.

epicdave · Nov 14, 2010

Those don't seem to be high word counts to me. But to be honest, I haven't seen any books as small as you're describing printed any longer. I'm wondering if that's because all the magazines that used to serialize or self-contain novels have all died.

Or maybe in today's world, nobody reads such short works, or they're possibly just not profitable? It seems novels are getting fatter and fatter and fatter. Look at Harry Potter, each novel outweighed the previous. Maybe today's readers just don't see any value in reading a tiny book. They want to enter the world and stay there for a long time. *shrugs*

It just seems like a tail-wags-the-dog situation. Publishers make an arbitrary decision that books should have a higher word count so there aren't any books under 80k words that get published and do well which is then used as evidence to support the contention that the 'market' wants longer books. That really doesn't make any sense though, because the market doesn't have access to shorter books due to the fact that publishers aren't publishing them.

Classification Word count
Novel over 40,000 words
Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story under 7,500 words

until I started working with sci-fi, this definition was always about right for classifying manuscripts. Sci-fi/Fantasy seems to have it's own weird rules about this.

Do you have guideline examples?

from Elder Sign Press:
Average Length
This can vary for the genre, but 80,000-90,000 words is a good average.

when I emailed them they said they only wanted to see manuscripts from 90k to 120k.

from Baen:
Preferred length: 100,000 - 130,000 words Generally we are uncomfortable with manuscripts under 100,000 words, but if your novel is really wonderful send it along regardless of length.

from Pyr Books:
For science fiction, we do not consider material under 85,000 words in length.

so what's the deal? If there really is evidence that shows a connection between sci-fi novel length and sales can anyone out there point me to it? Otherwise I'm really not seeing the point in maintaining an arbitrarily high limit on manuscripts.

Xelebes · Nov 14, 2010

Shadow_Ferret said:
Well, I was lazy and used Wiki's definition.

Classification Word count
Novel over 40,000 words
Novella 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story under 7,500 words

Anyway, here, agent Colleen Lindsay has a post on novel word counts.

Then don't charge $10 for a 60k novel! What's so hard about pricing by word or page count? Small novels have smaller prices. Hell, I'd buy a heckuva lot more novels if they were convenience priced by word count like that instead of pigeonholing them all into $8 or higher.

Price by word would be hard to calculate. Fixed costs are still present when bookmaking.

jennontheisland · Nov 14, 2010

It's not sales that's driving this. It's cost.

epicdave · Nov 14, 2010

Multiplying the number of pages in a published book by 250 is not going to give you the word count. Generally, it will be a great underestimate.

what? standard manuscript format averages 250 words per page. that's cannon. true, you can whip out a ruler and work out something a tad bit more accurate, but (250wds * page count) is usually a good and commonly accepted method of estimating.

from the SFWA:

http://www.sfwa.org/archive/writing/format_betancourt.htm

epicdave · Nov 14, 2010

Longer books are cheaper overall to produce. And paperbacks tend to have the same price whether they're 80K or 120K. Readers see more for their money in a thicker book.

It's not sales that's driving this. It's cost.

hmmm - so you're saying that it's cheaper to produce a book with a higher word count? I don't see how that can be the case. More word count = more pages and more ink = higher cost of materials = higher cost. Is there something about this I'm not understanding?

jennontheisland · Nov 14, 2010

Bulk discounts.

More doesn't equal higher cost. More equals lower cost bulk purchase. Look into getting something printed, business cards or invitations, at a printer. First 100 you pay x/card. 100-1000 you pay x-y/card. You pay less per item when you buy more. More pages in a book, lower cost per page to print.

Binding a book costs x regardless of how many pages are in the book. More pages in a book, less cost per page to bind that book. Lower cost per page results in more profit per page. More pages, more profit.

epicdave · Nov 14, 2010

Bulk discounts.

Binding a book costs x regardless of how many pages are in the book. More pages in a book less cost per page to bind that book. Lower cost per page results in more profit per page. More pages, more profit.

More doesn't equal higher cost. More equals lower cost bulk purchase. This is why people grocery shop at Costco.

who is issuing the discount? the printer? I thought the publisher was the printer (in the case of the large imprints) - in which case they would be issuing a discount to themselves.

rugcat · Nov 14, 2010

epicdave said:
hmmm - so you're saying that it's cheaper to produce a book with a higher word count? I don't see how that can be the case. More word count = more pages and more ink = higher cost of materials = higher cost. Is there something about this I'm not understanding?

This is true, and is a big reason that authors (even under contract) are often strongly encouraged to cut down on the wordcount.

jennontheisland · Nov 14, 2010

What? Publishers are publishers. Printers are printers.

And as with every cost benefit analysis, there comes a point where the top end tops out.

Publishers right now have apparently found that 80 to 120K words as the range in which they can make the most money.

CScottMorris · Nov 14, 2010

From what I understand, there is a 'sweet spot' in printing costs. To few pages, and the book is almost not worth the cost of printing, and too many pages make the book unprofitable. Generally, people will pay more for a larger book, but not enough to offset the cost. And for smaller books, people want to pay a lot less, usually not enough to justify the cost of printing.
Also, current trends in fantasy and sci-fi tend towards longer books. People want to know they will get a certain amount of entertainment from a book, a minimum number of hours of enjoyment.
Those minimum word counts are NOT arbitrary. Publishers dont sit up there in their corner offices issuing decrees about word count or vampires. They sell what they can, what the market wants. And the market wants books of roughly 80 to 120k words.
There are exemptions, both longer and shorter. If your book is exceptional, it will sell irregardless of length.

ChaosTitan · Nov 14, 2010

epicdave said:
Otherwise I'm really not seeing the point in maintaining an arbitrarily high limit on manuscripts.

A publisher's recommended word count is not chosen arbitrarily, no matter what you want to think. Publishing is a business, and word counts are often made as a business decision.

There will always be accepted exceptions to those word count requirements, just as there will always be book published within them. If you've written a stellar SF novel that's only 75k, it's possible for a good agent to still sell it.

Why are publishers imposing a high word count on the novels they publish?

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