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Word Count: Whatcha Think?
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Christine
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Aug 14, 2012 02:49PM
A typical paperback book has 80,000-100,000 words. But it's okay that your book is less. You can still publish your book. It would be called a novella.
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I should have clarified that the number of words I gave you is for a traditionally published book, which also means that you will probably not be able to traditionally publish it. But, again, don't worry, because self-publishing is the way to go, in my opinion.If your book has well-researched information, you could see if Amazon Singles will publish it.
The general opinion is anything over 50K words is considered a book. If you're aiming for a publisher, first novels are generally not more than 60K, although there will always be exceptions.
Justin, electronic publishing has opened up a whole new world to authors. An electronic book has no boundary like a hard copy does. The question is whether the story is well told. Yes, it is true that a traditional publisher would consider your novel short, but an electronic publisher would not. Even the cover price of he book is not dependent on the book's length, but rather on the reputation of the author and the depth of their following.
One trend I find encouraging is the move to longer books in electronic format than in hard copy. A book that might have been broken up into a series of smaller volumes can be published as a single work and appreciated in its entirety for the same cost (although not necessarily price) as the single volume.
The real question that is more important than the book's length is whether the book is worth reading at any length. That answer to that question is out of your hands and lies with the reviewers and book buying public.
FWIW my almost 200k word Sci Fi saga that I give away on my web site almost ended at 30k words until I changed the ending. Katy who reviews for Goodreads picked up the 170k version and admonished me for not finishing the book at that length. The version currently on my web site is the lengthened version Katy inspired and is available nowhere else.
One trend I find encouraging is the move to longer books in electronic format than in hard copy. A book that might have been broken up into a series of smaller volumes can be published as a single work and appreciated in its entirety for the same cost (although not necessarily price) as the single volume.
The real question that is more important than the book's length is whether the book is worth reading at any length. That answer to that question is out of your hands and lies with the reviewers and book buying public.
FWIW my almost 200k word Sci Fi saga that I give away on my web site almost ended at 30k words until I changed the ending. Katy who reviews for Goodreads picked up the 170k version and admonished me for not finishing the book at that length. The version currently on my web site is the lengthened version Katy inspired and is available nowhere else.
Each side of a paperback page is roughly 250 words. You can publish in both paperback and hardcover, as well as electronically, with Lulu (an "open publisher" who does various book formats). Free to do, of course.
Justin it depends on the book size and the spacing of the font, etc. My paperback (still proofing it, aarggh) is 5.5x8.5, has Garamond 12pt with 14pt leading as I recall (which is to say more than single spaced and less than line and a half) and 90k words comes to 260 pages, give or take.When it was single spaced 11pt in a 6x9 format, it was 188 pages. The difference is pretty big.
260pages is a decent paperback but a bit thin for fantasy (which mine is). Your best way to check is possibly to download it into a Createspace template and see how it comes out...if I can find the link I will. Hold on:
Have a play with some of these
https://www.createspace.com/en/commun...
and cut and paste your doc into them - you need a few pages at the front for copyright, dedication and all that, and at the back for About the Author, Acknowledgements and a list of your other books, but that should give you a rough idea at least.
You going to have a bash at self-pubbing or not ready for that yet? sounds like it's coming on, in any case!!
JAC
My novella of 29970words comes out as a little more than 100 printed pages - that's a very thin book. But it doesn't look bad on a bookshelf... except it vanishes next to longer books, of course.See my little bookshelf. The book I'm talking about is Soul Stealers, can you see it?
http://creativebarbwire.files.wordpre... (OK, there's two version, one was only for me, the thinner one is the "official" version!)
Up to you. I decided to stick to the wordcount the story requires, not bothering to meet traditional publishing standard wordcounts...
Indie publishing and happy to do it!
Justin, the true but infuriating answer is that your book should contain as many words as it takes to tell the story. Some stories can be told in 7,000 words while others require 250,000 words. I know that doesn't give you a lot of guidance, but it is true. I personally think it is a bad idea to bloat or cut a story to hit a specific word count.With that said, there are some guidelines for word count by classification. For example, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America use these brackets:
Short Story: < 7,500 Words
Novelette: < 17,500 Words
Novella: < 40,000 Words
Novel: > 40,000 Words
I do disagree with one of the other posters that novel length doesn't drive price. Most novellas sell for $1.99 at the absolute most, and that is from folks like Dean Koontz and Stephen King.
Because of that, I would think that your story will likely be limited to eBook. With CreateSpace, your minimum price for paperback would be about $5.50 if you used expanded distribution. That price point would make you about $0.04 per copy if someone bought it anywhere besides Amazon.
