How Long Should Your Book Be? Genre Word Counts in Traditional vs. Indie Publishing

Your book is outlined. You have everything planned. You’re ready to sit down and start writing. But then you take a second look at your concept and you realize that you absolutely don’t have enough to put you next to the recommended word count for your genre.

Panic sweeps in. If you really want your story to hit 80,000 words, you’re going to need to completely rework the plot. You’ll have to change the pacing. Rearrange every pivotal scene. It’s going to end up a completely different book.

Before you do that, I have a question for you. Who decided how long a book needs to be? 

Even more important, what really happens if your book doesn’t match that expectation?

The answer to both of these questions are actually really interesting. You see, the word count of your book is important and it will vary greatly from genre to genre. But even more important is the context behind your publishing genre.

Traditional Publishing Word Count Expectations

When people discuss a genre-based word count expectation, they are almost always discussing value held exclusively in traditional publishing. 

Remember, if you’re doing traditional publishing, you have to pitch your book repeatedly. First to an agent, then to the publishing house, and then to the audience. It’s a more complex ecosystem. 

Agents generally look at production costs, print pricing, shelf space, reader expectations, and how a manuscript fits within a market category. One of the easiest ways for them to do this is by looking at the word count of the manuscript. 

Let’s take a look at the most common ranges in traditional publishing.

Adult Fantasy: 80,000–120,000

Epic Fantasy: 120,000–150,000

Science Fiction: 80,000–120,000

Romance: 50,000–90,000

Mystery/Crime: 70,000–90,000

Cozy Mystery: 60,000–80,000

Thriller/Suspense: 80,000–100,000

Horror: 70,000–90,000

Young Adult (YA): 50,000–80,000

There’s a lot of variety there, right? That’s because genres like fantasy and science fiction require more worldbuilding, cozy genres tend to run on the shorter end of their respective primary genres, and romance has such a wide range because individual subgenres, each with their own standards. 

YA also has a very large span of possible word counts. This is because the Young Adult category covers readers from the ages of twelve to eighteen. Depending on your target reader, the word count will change. 

Why Indie Publishing Plays by Different Rules

But what we just looked at are the common standards seen in traditional publishing. The world of self-publishing plays by completely different rules.

When you’re independently publishing your manuscript, you have complete control over the book length and format, your pricing and release strategy, and whether you are publishing the book as a novel, novella, novelette, or short story. 

While a traditional publisher might consider an unusually short novel difficult to position, an indie author can instead build their marketing strategy around that length. This also allows indie authors to weigh the entire market’s reader preferences and genre expectations, rather than just the loudest voices that traditional publishing generally focuses on.

Length doesn’t guarantee or prevent commercial success.

In the world of self-publishing, it’s common to see incredibly successful romance novels that sit between 20,000 and 40,000 words. Serialized fictions and genre novellas have devoted reader-bases and self-published nonfiction books can be produced as short guides or practical, handbooks.

Playing around with your word count also allows authors to reach readers that prefer shorter reading sessions or longer reading sessions. 

Choosing the Right Length for Your Book

As an author, your goal shouldn’t be trying to stretch your manuscript or damage the pacing just to hit an arbitrary number. You should always be focused on delivering the best version of your story and creating the best experience for the reader.

Sometimes, this is going to mean a shorter book than traditional publishing might expect or a longer one. 

Rather than panicking about the word count, consider these angles instead:

• What kind of experience are you trying to create for your reader?

• Does the story feel complete at its current length?

• Are you adding additional material because the story actually needs it, or are you just chasing after a number?

• Are you cutting potentially important character development in an attempt to keep your book beneath a certain length?

  
  

Finding the answer to these questions will make it vastly easier to discover what the best version of your book actually looks like.

The Messy Writer Reminder

Just because your book has reached 80,000 words doesn’t promise it’s going to be a success. At the same time, a 15,000 word manuscript isn’t automatically finished just because you’ve hit The End. The most important thing is to ensure the work is fulfilling its purpose.

So here’s my final question for you.

What word count are you aiming for, and is that number serving your story or stressing you out?