How long are historicals?

No real answer to this, really.
Scarlet Pimpernel was reissued in paperback recently as 299 pages.
Gabaldon's latest was 992.

There isn't a meaningful 'average' as such.

I will say that most publishers, in most fields, are looking at 100,000 to 120,000 words for a good substantial novel-sized book.

Shorter than 90,000 and the story may feel 'flimsy' when compared with other offerings.
Longer than 135,000 and the printing costs become such that a publisher may be reluctant to take it on for an untried writer.

That said -- believe what everyone else has been telling you. The book is done when it's done.

Some anecdotal evidence: I was told by two agents who sell historical fiction that 120,000 was not too long, and that I could go a little longer.
I think job is spot on with her advice though.

Agents and publishers give historical fiction a bit more leeway when it comes to word count. The book I just sold is 125,000.

So no less than 90,000 for an adult historical? I know that I'm going to come in at the shorter end of things, but don't want to end up too short before revisions.

I'm going with a gut feeling here that adult historicals are going to be 100K and up.

If you're pacing yourself toward a final wordcount, it's probably worthwhile looking into this for yourself.

One way to do it is this --

Go to Amazon.
Pick out 10 historical fiction books that are more or less equivalent to yours.
Look at the 'Search Inside this book' feature.
Go to an average page.
Count the words in a couple of lines and get an average.
It'll be about 10.
Multipy it by the number of lines on the page.
Multipy it by the number of pages in the book (You find that on the main Amazon page next to the ISBN,)

O'Brian's HMS Surprise is round about 135,000 to 140,000.

funidream said:

Agents and publishers give historical fiction a bit more leeway when it comes to word count. The book I just sold is 125,000.

Click to expand...

Congratulations on selling a book. Somehow I think at 125,000 I would be just getting warmed up.

job said:

Go to Amazon.
Pick out 10 historical fiction books that are more or less equivalent to yours.
Look at the 'Search Inside this book' feature.
Go to an average page.
Count the words in a couple of lines and get an average.
It'll be about 10.
Multipy it by the number of lines on the page.
Multipy it by the number of pages in the book (You find that on the main Amazon page next to the ISBN,)

Click to expand...

Alternatively, for books with the "Search Inside" feature, mouse over the book image, and when the menu pops up, click on "Text Stats". This will give you word, sentence, and character count.

Personally, I shot for 70-80K on my first draft. As it stands now, I'm going to add in another POV (that makes only 2 instead of the single POV it currently is), so that will undoubtedly add some to the total. Then I guess I'll get to figure out what to cut/tighten. *s*

Doogs said:

Alternatively, for books with the "Search Inside" feature, mouse over the book image, and when the menu pops up, click on "Text Stats". This will give you word, sentence, and character count.

Click to expand...

(Jo hand forehead)
Yes!
Of course.