How Long?

Back in the olden times, I was trained with certain expectations around length. A short story could be up to 10,000 words. A novelette was from there to 15,000 words. A novella was from 15,000 to 30,000. Novels were 90,000 and up. And anything between 30,000 and 90,000 was in a “dead zone,” unpublishable because no markets existed for work of that length.

I’ve been following those expectations for *cough* years. But the thing is, that framework was developed around printed publications. The editors knew how many pages each story or article would fill, based on its length. They also paid by the word, and they had a budget for they could spend to acquire work.

Now, though, publications are increasingly electronic rather than printed. It’s slightly odd to see the same expectations still reflected in editorial guidelines. I mean, there are new categories, such as Flash Fiction, which can’t exceed 1,000 words in most cases. And there’s self-publishing that allows authors to produce their own work at whatever length they see fit. There no longer has to be a “dead zone” between 30,000 and 90,000 words.

I guess maybe the media has changed, but the budgets to acquire work are still there?

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