How Long Should a Book Be?
Writers have a love-hate relationship with word count. It’s one of the necessary evils we deal with to determine if a manuscript meets an acceptable published length. So how long should a book be? Here’s a guide to help you answer.
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Question: How long should my book be?
Answer: As long as it takes to tell your story.
It almost sounds like a joke at open mic night for writers, but like all good jokes, there’s some truth to it. As a general rule, your book should be as long as it needs to be to tell your story, but short enough to hold your reader’s interest all the way to the end.
So why should we care about word count? Shouldn’t we be focused on more writerly things such as pacing, conflict, stakes, character arcs, and worldbuilding?
While you can’t ditch those craft elements, you should plan to keep the length of your story within the word count range. You don’t want agents/editors/publishers to immediately eliminate your submission if it’s too short or too long. When agents/editors see a very high word count, they see it as a sign that the writer doesn’t know how to edit their story. And, for certain genres like science fiction or fantasy, readers have expectations for a longer book length.
Of course, there are always exceptions that get published, but give yourself the best possible shot of success and stick to the guidelines. If you’re like me, you want some cold, hard numbers. I scoured the internet and compiled these word counts.
First, it’s important to know the general word counts for flash fiction, short stories, novellas, and novels.
Flash fiction: 100 to 500 words
Short Story: 1,000 to 8,000 words (often longer)
Novella: 20,000 and 50,000 words
Novel: 75,000 and 100,000 words (anything over 110,000 is an epic novel!)
These word counts can get broken down further based on these major factors: Audience, Genre, and Fiction or Non-Fiction.
CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULT
Board Book: 100 words max
Early Picture Book: 400 words max
Picture Book: 600 words max (standard is text for 32 pages)
Nonfiction Picture Book: 3,000 words max
Early Reader: 1,500 words max
Chapter Books: 5,000 to 20,000 words (depends on grade and reader level)
Young Middle Grade: 15,000 to 25,000 words
Middle Grade: 45,000 words max for contemporary, mystery, humor
Upper Middle Grade: 65,000 words max for Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Adventure, and Historical
Young Adult: 60,000 to 80,000 words
85,000 words max for Contemporary, Humor, Mystery, Historical, Romance
95,000 words max for Fantasy, Sci-fi, Paranormal
ADULT FICTION
New Adult: 65,000 to 85,000 words
Romance: 60,000 to 100,000 words
Science Fiction: 90,000 to 125,000 words (can be up to 150,000)
Fantasy: 90,000 to 120,000 words
Historical Fiction: 80,000 to 120,000 words
Mystery: 75,000 to 90,000 words
Thrillers: 80,000 to 100,000 words
Crime: 90,000 to 100,000 words
Horror: 80,000 to 100,000 words
Literary Fiction: 50,000 to 120,000 words
ADULT NON-FICTION
Standard Nonfiction: 70,000 to 80,000 words (i.e. Business, Political Science, Psychology, History)
Memoir: 80,000 to 100,000 words
Biography: 80,000 to 200,000 words
How-to/Self-Help: 40,000 to 50,000 words
In conclusion, try to stay within these word count guidelines if you want to publish traditionally. However, when you’re working on your first draft, don’t worry about the word count—just get your story down. Once you get to the editing stage you’ll be adding and subtracting lots of words. Revision is the time to pay attention to polishing your manuscript and making sure it falls within the word count ranges.
For fun, here’s a link to the word count of famous novels compiled by Broke by Books.
Keep writing!
To gain total confidence with any word count you’ve written, get professional feedback from Good Story Editing.