Novel, Novella, Novelette

The Length of a Story

I have heard from somewhere that if your work is less than 80,000 or greater than 110,000 and you’re a first-time novelist that publishers will be wary of taking your work. So I did a little research on word count and this is what I found out.

Micro-fiction-

100 word story
Publishers like these because it doesn’t cost them so much money trying to sell it, so it’s a win-win situation.

Flash-fiction-

100-1,000 words
They usually publish these in magazines.

Short Story-
 1,000-7,500 words
Usually published in anthology collections.

Novelette-

7,500-20,000 words
Publishers don’t really like this because it’s too long to insert into a magazine, and too short to stand on its own as a novel.

Novella-

20,000-50,000 words
Even though this is kind of short online publishers like them. This is mostly because people with shorter-attention spans/ people who don’t have much time to read enjoy books that aren’t as long as novels.

Novel-

50,000-110,000 words
I heard that most publishers consider 80,000 the minimum word count for a novel and 110,000 the maximum.

Epics/sequels-

Over 110,000

So if you’re writing a sequel to a novel you can extend the word count, but it’s most likely that publishers won’t accept something this long from a new-author. But if you’re a really famous author like J.K Rowling or Stephen King then it doesn’t really matter what your word count is. But anyways, if you’re writing a novel and its over 110,00 words then you should either condense it or figure out how to make it into a series.

Novel, Novella, Novelette