90 Thousand Words?

[Russ Still]

For as long as I've been on here (off and on for a couple of years), I've seen everyone quoting the 80-90k words/book thing. I'm just curious where this common knowledge came from. While I'm sure there are genres that are known for the brevity of their examples, I apparently must not be reading any of them.

Plenty of books from the 50s and 60s were short. Examples from Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke immediately come to mind. But for the majority of commercial fiction written in the last half century, they almost all clock in at well over 100,000 words.

Yesterday, I did a little word counting in my local Media Play (for those of you who don't have one of these nearby, the WalMart of books, music, and videos). I went to their rack of top 15 selling hardback books, and took a copy of each. In a chair in the corner, I counted words.

Bottom line, the <u>shortest</u> book was Grisham's Last Juror. It registered over 105k words. The average of all the books was about 115,000 words.

So, unless we're talking cookbooks or books of poetry, where the heck did you people come up with 80-90k as optimal?

[Ed Poe]

Here are a few links to play with regarding word count. I make no claim as to their veracity.

www.wirepack.clara.net/words/2countthem.htm

www.scalar.com/mw/pages/mwfaq.shtml#1.9

www.dancingword.net/novelsvsnovellasworkshoptranscript.htm

--Ed

[Robert Raven]

In general, these word count discussions are for those of us poor benighted souls who are still trying to get a first novel published. And it's first novels that tend to be frowned upon by agents and publishers if they are too long. You'll find advice on preferred word lengths cited in advice articles by other writers, agents, etc., in places like Writers Market and on-line. Bestselling authors, like Grisham, have a lot more leeway with their publishers in terms of ms. length. Just look at the evolution of the Harry Potter books.

RR

[Chris Graham]

Russ, I believe the 80k to 90k word count question is in reference to unpublished and otherwise first-time authors.

Less than 80k and publishers fear they won't be able to sell it at their normal prices, i.e. consumers think it looks 'skimpy' on the shelf and are hesitant to pay as much for it. More than 100k words and of course the book costs more to produce and publishers might not want to invest this kind of money into a 1st timer.

80k to 90k is a good place to be when submitting to agents and publishers, because there is room to trim if need be and plenty of room to add.

I also think that these are assumptions and averages based on general marketing principles and marketplace trends and are not to be taken as the, 'end all, be all,' of answers to the length question.

As a matter of fact, there are very few definitive answers to any of these questions.

[Linda]

...shorter is better, especially for a first novel. You'll appreciate the wiggle room a lower-end word count creates with your story once the editor weighs in---because they almost always want revisions that will add wordage (more of this character, more of that character; this scene is confusing, that description is lacking, and by the way, the denoument needs a better buildup, etc).

If you're already hitting the outter limit of words (50K for kiddie lit, my genre; 110K for adults? You folks would know that better than I), you might end up working out revisions with a specific editorial request not to add to the word count. You will end up killing your darlings in order to revise and still hit a doable word count--not a pleasant prospect.

[Gary Kessler]

I don't know where others get the general optimum length for a first novel (as Chris points out, word length targets are usually trotted out in discussions about selling a first offering), but I got the 85,000-word target I often mention in the university classroom and on the job. That count represents the most cost-efficient number for a publisher in what I was taught in my publishing university courses and what I subsequently heard from production chiefs in both trade and academic houses. The number doesn't reflect genre; it just reflects what is the most desirable book-length number for producing a book. Thus, something close to this length goes down the best as a wordage count--for this element of publishing--when a publisher is considering publishing a book from a first-time author whose market potential is completely untested. That doesn't mean it's either a definitive requirement or the most important element of the book that the publisher is considering--just that its the safest "favorable" zone for that element of the consideration.

[Russ Still]

Yeah, I noticed the qualifiers that the wordcount in question was primarily for first-timers. But don't we all aspire to that shelf in Media Play where the top 15 sellers sit? If you think your work is as good as that of the big-boys, doesn't it make sense to do it like they do it?

I mean, I looked all over the racks in the store for commercial fiction. True, I was just estimating based on the thickness of the spine (sounds odd, doesn't it?), but I got the impression that practically none of the books were as small as 90k words.

Based on that, first timer or not, I don't think I'd want to optimize my story based on such a small count of words. You want to write a book that sells? Well, it sure looks to me that 110,000 words is more what the public expects for their money.

[Ed Poe]

Author: Russ Still (---.dsl.mindspring.com)
Date: 02-26-04 10:21

Yeah, I noticed the qualifiers that the wordcount in question was primarily for first-timers. But don't we all aspire to that shelf in Media Play where the top 15 sellers sit? If you think your work is as good as that of the big-boys, doesn't it make sense to do it like they do it?

No, it doesn't. What makes sense is to get your foot in the door by following the rules, however arcane and illogical they may be.

--Ed

[emmaC]

Hi Russ,

I think length often depends on the genre, and of course can be much longer once the writer is established. For me, I aim for about 90-100K for all my books based on info from two publishers of my genre. Their submission info was quite clear. One stated the manuscripts need to be 90,000 to 100,000. The other stated 80,000-110,000. Based on those guidelines, I followed suit.

[Russ Still]

There we go, Ed. The answer I was fishing for. The rules. So where the heck did this rule come from? It sounds like some urban legend to me.

Gary has pointed out the mechanics vs. economics thing and that certainly makes sense. But I'm guessing that describes the case where the publisher is looking at your book as a long shot, and is just trying to hedge his bet with a short, inexpensive print run. Honestly, that probably does describe the situations with most first time writers. (Actually MOST writers, not just first timers.)

Here's my thinking: If you suspect your work is publishable, but marginally good - go with 85K words. But if you think it has hit potential, you'd have better luck with 110,000ish.