If you’ve written a book, you’ve probably wondered if it’s too long. Or too short. How long should your book be? The answer is simpler than you expect. But it can also be more complicated.
How Long Should Your Book Be: Meeting Reader Expectations
There’s a good reason to wonder how long your book should be. That reason: reader expectations.
Why do reader expectations matter? Because when you write within certain genres (especially the best-selling genres), readers expect certain things. That includes a specific length. Most of the time, published works fall into specific lengths, such as:
- Memoirs fall between 30,000 and 75,000 words
- Picture books typically have 200 to 1,000 words (or even fewer!)
- Science-fiction books are often extremely long (100,000+ words)
Want a fuller breakdown of genre expectations? You can find them all over the web, including over at Publishing Talk. But these expectations don’t have the final say. Remember—you’re a writer, which means you’re creative. And creative people don’t always fit inside of boxes. They bust out of them.
What Matters More Than Word Count
Stressed out that your book doesn’t fall into the predetermined length for a specific book genre? Relax. Your manuscript doesn’t have to fit inside traditional word count requirements. In fact, it seems more and more writers are eschewing convention and creating literary works that are outside of the norm.
According to The Times out of the United Kingdom, some of the most revered volumes published recently don’t hit the standard word count. They report that “Of the 13 titles longlisted for the International Booker Prize, eight are under 200 pages long.”
This is good news for writers who specialize in brevity. But what if you tend to get more verbose? What if your story runs well over the typical word count? In a word (pardon the pun), that’s fine.
Put simply, word count is not crucial to your book’s success. Storytelling is. So, write a book people want to read. As long as you create a memorable story that engages the reader from the introduction to the final page, length doesn’t matter. Readers will flip through 1,000 pages of excellent romance storytelling without batting an eye. They’ll also sprint through a 165-page sci-fi thriller without complaint.
Need help publishing your book? No matter the length, submit your manuscript for consideration today.