Today we’ll talk about an interesting question and often a confused one. How many words are in a novel, novella, short stories or other book genres? For a novice authors, it is imperative to know the length of novel on whatever book genre he/she is writing. Although a writer must write with his flow of writing but still he/she has to know where to end the novel if he wants to get traditionally published or getting a book deal.
So if you are newbie, you must know your book genre and target audience and thus able to find an approximate word count for your debut novel. There are no stringent rules on the total number of words, but knowing some details regarding the word count will help you save your time and you are on your way to approach a book agent and publisher the right way and your writing journey can start in right direction. It is often a misconception that long word books sell more. But I want to disagree this point as short novels sell better as publisher or literary agent might feel reluctant on selling a longer novel of a first time writer. Besides, its a bit expensive to print a long novel and thus increasing the budget. Thus new authors must stick to expected range of word count.
So what will be the length of your novel i.e how many words are in a novel?
A book approximately over 40000 words is termed as novel. There’s no upper limit to a novel word count. It can be over 100000 words which is often referred as epic, not novel. There are popular novels which are over 400000 for e.g Les Miserables and also short novels of just 20000 words. Thus you must always check the publisher’s website about how many word count novel they are expecting. But more specifically it also varies on different genres as fiction novel can be of different genres.
How many words in a General Fiction/Adult Fiction novel
Approx word count: 80,000 words – 110000 words. If your fiction is longer, then the publisher might not consider and similarly if it is below 70000 words, publisher may reject. Stay between 80K-110K words.
How many words in a Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel
Approximate word count: 100,000 words to 115000 words
You can make the novel longer as readers like to read a long story and sci-fi is based on world building artifacts. Sci-fi is often written as a part of a series. So the audience doesn’t want to be restricted to word count. You can easily write up to 120000 but should not exceed 150000. Publishers know the market and thus if they like your novel and above 100000 words, you might get a book deal.
How many words in a Historical fiction:
These are up to 100,000-word as the imagined historical world building takes a good amount of word count.
How many words in a Young Adult Fiction?
The word count lies between 40,000-70,000 for teenagers and length of the book is close to adult fiction. A Sci-fi YA can be on the upper range limit .
How many words in a Novella?
A novella is a shorter version of novel or a short story and ranges anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 words.
How many words in a Novellete?
A shorter version of novella i.e novelette ranging from 8000- 18000 words.
How many words in a short story /flash fiction?
Generally a short story should be between 1000 to 10,000 words and then there is Flash fiction which is at most 500 words length.
How many words in a non-fiction?
There is strictly no rule in terms of word count in a nonfiction story as it is divided into many sub genres viz: travel guides, history, journalism, self help, biographies, memoirs,tutorial guides etc. Self help book ranges from as short as 30000 words to 70000 words. Memoirs in general are long -80000 to 90000 words.
Conclusion
So you may ask this question why word count is mentioned, not pages? The answer is simple as page length can vary significantly depending on the font and margin of your manuscript. That’s the reason preference over word count is given. The publisher knows well which book sell the best and they know the market well and that’s why they give preference over the word count. But my no. 1 tip is writing a great story, don’t worry about the word count. If your content is rich, you will get response from publisher. So your first manuscript should be written without thinking of the word count.
Very interesting. Thank you!