Word Count: Why Your Book Should Be This Long

“What’s your word count?” It’s one of the first questions I ask any author who is thinking of working with me. It’s a basic, easily-identifiable answer, but a lot of people squirm as if I’d asked them their BMI.

They usually know their genre’s word-count standards (most often between 75,000-95,000 words), but they wonder if they can get away with a 50,000-word book or a 150,000-word book. No, depending on genre, they can’t (see guidelines for each genre below.)

If you found this post by searching “word count,” I can practically hear you still saying, “It doesn’t reeaaaaaally matter, does it?”

I’m so sorry to say it, but yep, it really does. Believe it or not, the reasoning is sound.

Word count matters. But why, oh why?

God knows I wanted to understand this annoying fact when my own book wasn’t coming in at an acceptable range. When I was trying to get my novel published, I scoured every site I could find on word count, hoping for reprieve. Back then, Amazon would let you see the word counts of books, and I would search books on the shorter side hoping to convince myself that my 60,000 word book was long enough and that I was finally done. I wasn’t. Damn.

It seemed so arbitrary! A few years later, when yet another military move meant I had to stop teaching at Rutgers, I started working privately with clients. The second I started editing full-length books, I instantly got it.

Word count was a red flag. First there were the obvious cases. If someone came to me with a 12,000 word “book,” I’d send them to someone who edits short stories.

If they came to me with a 400,000-word book, we’d have a difficult conversation about the basic fact that it would be hard to bind, let alone edit and market a 1,600-page debut novel.

These are the kinds of wildly-off manuscripts that an agent or editor won’t even look at before either rejecting, or ignoring, the author.

But what about something more in the gray area, say mainstream fiction that is 55,000 words or 115,000 words? At first glance, these aren’t too bad, but when I’d racked up enough experience, even in those cases, I could usually sense a problem before we started.

Books that were short usually weren’t fully developed with a satisfying story arc.
Books that were long usually dragged, lacked focus, or went off in unnecessary or confusing directions.

From my perspective at the time as an editor, that was fine because it was my job to help clients revise their books to their fullest potential.

But an agent isn’t going to give you that leeway. Writers tend to forget that agents spend years of their life on an author’s book and only get paid if the book sells well. They’re usually only going to take on books that are very close to being publishable already. Why wouldn’t they when there are so many authors pitching them every day?

Agents see thousands upon thousands of manuscripts, and their vast experience has shown them that writers whose word counts are unusually low or high are not experienced. They haven’t learned how to flesh out a fully developed, satisfying story. Or they don’t know how to focus or edit or haven’t mastered pacing.

If your book’s word count is currently too long or too short, it’s OKAY.

That’s what revision is for. Some people (raising my hand high in the air) write short and then need to flesh out. Some people (who I sometimes envy) write long and have to edit down and tighten. This is totally normal. Hardly anyone gets it right on a first draft. But guess what? You still finished a draft! OMG - celebrate, no matter what your word count!

Then get to work improving it.

I’m sure you’re still trying to convince yourself your book is publishable as is and you’re thinking up exceptions. Indeed, there are always exceptions. My book club recently read The Nightingale, which is 167,000 words. Personally, I did not feel this was too long, but Kristin Hannah is also a bestselling author. She had been publishing for more than 20 years before The Nightingale, and the rest of her books are far, far shorter, closer to 100,000-120,000, which is well within range for historical fiction.

My friend Kim Fay’s marvelous novel Love and Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love is only around 50,000 words yet feels fully realized. Keep in mind this is Fay’s fifth book and some publishers rejected it because of its length before it found a home at Penguin Random House.

Novellas also get published. I just reread Rapture by Susan Minot in fact, which is about 35,000 words, and it’s wonderful. But it would be extraordinary for a publisher to take on a novella by a debut author who hadn’t already been writing for places like The New Yorker.

Yes, it’s also true that every now and then, an unusually long or short book by a debut author gets published. But guess what happens far more often than that? Someone wins the Powerball. If you think you’re the lucky exception to the rule and have the Midas Touch, head on over to the convenience store ASAP my friend. You’ll save yourself a ton of time.

When should you worry about word count?

When you’re writing, don’t worry about it all. Just write. As I said, most first drafts will be too long or too short (not to mention too boring or confusing or predictable, with plot holes and caricatures and flat dialogue to boot). They’re drafts for goodness sakes! We fix them up on revision.

When you’re ready to pitch agents, small publishers, or to self-publish…give word count a good hard look.

Again, if word count is a red flag for agents and editors, why wave it? The competition is so fierce that you want to do everything you can to maximize your chances.

It may not seem fair that they would judge your book before reading the whole thing, but you’d do the exact same thing. If you were in the market for a kitchen renovation (about the same level of stress and investment as an agent taking on an author), when the market rate is $10,000, would you hand a sledgehammer to the guy who quotes you $999 or the guy who asks for $20,000? Remember, this person is brand new to the job and doesn’t have a track record to stand behind. Heck, no. You’ll take their business card, close the door as fast and you can and look more closely at the contractors who seem to know what they’re doing.

Does word count matter if you’re self publishing?

Yes and no. If you’re self-publishing, you’re the boss and technically your book can be as long as you want. You can publish that 12,000-word essay and call it a book, but are readers going to feel like they got what they expected? Likewise, as long as you’re not worried about print costs, you can self publish a 400,000 word tome. But should you?

Let’s think about movies for a bit since they’re a little easier to quantify and there’s a better chance you’ve seen the same ones.

There are some wonderful three-hour movies. Almost none of them were by new writers/producers/new actors. No one wants to risk investing in an extra-long saga by an unknown team. And even when you think of most three-hour movies with big directors and stars, many of them still should have been shorter. Did Titanic REALLY need every single scene where they got stuck below the water level again?

Assuming you want to make sure you create the best possible reading experience, you’ll want to edit your book so it’s fully fleshed out but still a tightly-written page turner.

What to do if your book is too long or too short.

FIXING A BOOK THAT’S TOO SHORT:

Should you pad it? If I point out that a word count is really low, writers will sometimes throw up their hands and say, “fine I’ll pad it.” I can so relate to this. When I was first pitching my novel, I thought I just needed to add a few chapters so it was in an acceptable range. They saw through this. When they did open the “just-right” manuscript, the still had big concerns about the plot and character development. A low word-count usually tells you that something has not been developed enough, and padding a book with extra words is not the same as developing it.

I wanted the easy way out, too. That didn’t work, but fleshing out the story and the characters did.

For fiction or memoir, ask yourself these questions:

Does the main character have a strong character arc? Meaning they start out desperately wanting something, face obstacles to getting it, and then because of that effort, they come out changed.
Do you really let the reader get to know the other characters, major and minor? Oftentimes, secondary characters operate as plot devices but aren’t presented as whole, complex people in their own right.
Is your plot too simple and/or do the characters get out of scrapes too easily? If the protagonist keeps being saved by coincidence rather than by their own doing, you have much more than a numbers problem.
Is your pacing so fast that the reader never has a chance to slow down and enjoy character or setting or just take a pause?
Are your scenes grounded in time and place or could they be happening anywhere at any time?
Are your transitions clear and smooth, or is the reader being whipped around so they don’t know what’s going on?

If you’re writing non-fiction, ask yourself the following:

Have you been specific and thorough enough, or are you only covering general things your reader could find in blog posts?
Have you shared concrete opportunities for follow-through, or are you sticking to ideas or arguments without offering practical solutions?
Is your scope too narrow? If so, how does the topic you’re writing on relate to a larger theme?
Are you providing real-world examples to support your ideas and arguments?
Have you really developed each point of your argument or instruction?
Have you included characters or dialogue? Believe it or not, they’re very necessary to breathe life into your book.

FIXING A BOOK THAT’S TOO LONG:

This is where authors sigh and say, “fine, I’ll split it into more than one book.” Like padding a too-short book, this sounds like an easy way out, but it’s not the solution. If we’re talking about a novel or memoir, you need a thorough, satisfying story arc where the character wants something desperately, faces obstacles trying to get it, and comes out a changed person in the end. The first book, and each subsequent book, would need to stand on its own and move through a full journey. You can’t just publish a section of a book and expect people to wait until later for the middle or end of the story. Absolutely books can be part of a series, but each book has its own complete arc.

If we’re talking about non-fiction, breaking off part way is equally as problematic. When an author successfully writes more than one book on a topic, they aren’t stopping each one in the middle. Each book has its own theme or approach, or perhaps they’ve used their same method but tweak it for a different audience.

For fiction or memoir, ask yourself the following:

Does the book sag in the middle?
Do you have redundant or slow scenes?
Are your sentences flabby or repetitive and in need of tightening?
Is your plot overly complicated?
Are your sentences overly complicated?
Are you boring readers by including all the boring moments between impactful scenes? Like waking up, driving to the scene etc.
Do you start too early in the character’s history? Too long before the inciting incident or before what the book is really about? If it’s memoir, did you start with childhood and go chronologically rather than focusing in on the main theme and jumping in at the most crucial point?
Is the book bogging down in backstory?
Do you go on tangents like an 18th or 19th century novel? If you ever read the unabridged Les Miserables, you probably remember the 100-page tangents Hugo went on, like the history and functioning of Paris sewers. You cannot do that today! Modern readers will skip over all of that, or they’ll put down your book and turn on Netflix.

If you’re writing non-fiction, consider these questions:

Are you overcomplicating your explanations with too much detail or too many contingencies?
Have you moved outside the scope of what people will really buy this book to learn?
Is your focus too vague? Just like vagueness can make a book too short, failing to identify a tight angle and being too general can make your book too long. Remind yourself of your reader’s felt need and stick to that.
Are you repeating yourself?
Do you spend too much time in the beginning selling the reader on why they need the book rather than getting to your solutions?
Do you like hearing yourself talk so much you’ve included unnecessary tangents?
Do you provide too many examples?

Word Count Guidelines By Genre

Adult fiction

Literary fiction, commercial, upmarket, mainstream - 70,000-90,000

Sci fi and fantasy tends to go a little longer 90,000-110,000 maybe 125,000. The high end starts getting long, but unlike with mainstream fiction, agents probably won’t run for the hills.

Historical fiction also often goes a bit longer, nearer to 90,000-100,000

Mainstream Romance is more like mainstream fiction at 70,000-90,000

Category romance (think Harlequin) can run much shorter, even as low as 45,000

Children’s fiction

YA - 60,000-80,000

Middle grade - 40,000-60,000

Chapter books - around 10,000

Picture books - This is way out of my realm of my professional expertise, but according to Writer’s Digest “The standard is text for 32 pages. That might mean one line per page, or more. 500-600 words is a good number to aim for. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away.”

Adult non-fiction

Memoir runs about the same as fiction at 70,000-90,000

Self-help can run shorter, between 50,000-70,0000

Prescriptive nonfiction is also pretty middle of the road at 70,000-90,000

In general, the Safe Zone for adult fiction is 70,000-100,000, and the Safe Zone for adult nonfiction is 60,000-90,000 words. Less than that and your book is probably too short. More than that and your book is probably too long. Considerably shorter than that is definitely too short, and considerably more is definitely too long.

How far off is your word count, and should you sweat it?

1,000 words above or below, you’re entirely fine. Don’t even think about it.
5,000 you’re probably fine, but give it a little thought.
10,000 above or below, you probably need to do some work.
15,000 above or below the norm for your genre, you’re definitely too long or short. I recommend revising.

Examples of word count for popular books in each category

If you want to check out the word counts of other popular books, visit Wordcounters.

Adult fiction

Literary - A Visit from the Good Squad by Jennifer Egan, 97,000

Mainstream - A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman, 90,000

Thriller - The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, 85,000 words

Fantasy - Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb, 135,000

Romance - The Bridgertons: Happily Every After by Julia Quinn, 97,000

Category romance (think Harlequin) — Count Valieri’s Prisoner by Sara Craven, 49,000

Sci fi - The Martian by Andy Weir, 108,000

Children’s fiction

Chapter book - The Princess in Black by Shannon and Dean Hale, 20,000

Middle Grade - New Kid by Jerry Craft, 52,000

Fantasy MG - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling is much, much longer than is typical at 79,000

YA - Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, 62,000

Adult non-fiction

Memoir - Wild by Cheryl Strayed, 85,000

Self-help - The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, 63,000

Prescriptive non-fiction (how to) - The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris, 86,000 words

Conclusion

There are good reasons most published books fall in standard word count ranges, but don’t fret over the numbers themselves. Look for why your book is coming in long or short, and fix that aspect of the story.

Don’t make it boring!! Stay focused. Instead of trying to justify your book’s stats, get to work and edit, edit, edit.

P.S. Now you’ve got me wondering what experts would say about blog post word count! I’ve almost certainly worn out my welcome. ;-) Since I’m a mom, I’ll just leave you with “do as I say, not as I do.”