The Word Count Issue

In the traditional publishing world, word count for young adult novels is all over the place. The Twilight Saga books are each over 100,000 words. Books like Kate Brian's Private series are more around the 65,000-75,000 word count. Most websites and agents place a typical YA manuscript between 45,000-80,000 words. Here is what Agent Colleen Lindsay says about YA:

YA fiction = For mainstream YA, anywhere from about 45k to 80k; paranormal YA or YA fantasy can occasionally run as high as 120k but editors would prefer to see them stay below 100k. The second or third in a particularly bestselling series can go even higher. But it shouldn't be word count for the sake of word count.

According to wikipedia, a novelette is between 7,500 and 17,499 words. A novella is generally anything between 17,500 and 40,000 words. Anything over 40,000 words is technically a novel. However, it seems like internet opinions on the different types of novels is all over the place. Some people think that anything below 70,000 words is not a novel. The first book in my Peachville High Demons series, Beautiful Demons, comes in just under 47,000 words, so technically, it should be considered a novel, just on the low end of a typical YA novel. Each subsequent novel in the PHD series is slightly longer with Book 2 just over 50,000, Book 3 just over 54,000, and Book 4 around 60,000 words.

In my opinion, none of my PHD books are novelettes or novellas. Most sites and organizations out there consider anything over 40,000 a novel and my books all qualify. On the other hand, since there's really no standard out there that's accepted and understood for everyone, it's not always my opinion that gets voiced. Especially when it comes to reviews. For the most part, a reviewer calling my book a novelette doesn't bother me too much. I understand that some people have longer expectations for novels and that's fine.

Where it begins to get complicated is that without standard accepted definitions among readers, sometimes reader expectations are compromised. For example, I got a 3-star review on Amazon recently that knocked my books for being novelettes instead of full-length novels and that they should have been one book instead of a series. To be honest, I found this review frustrating. I know as authors we are not supposed to complain about reviews or respond to them. I want to make it clear that I'm not dogging this reader for their opinion. What frustrates me is that I had a reader who was disappointed in the product because in their opinion, it wasn't a novel.

I have been trying to figure out what I should maybe add to my description of the book in order to let people know exactly what to expect. I certainly don't want to call it a novella or a novelette because there are a lot of people who know that those delineations mean less than 40,000 words or short story length. I could simply just list the total word count. On the other hand, I wonder if most readers understand word count? Or if that is just sort of an out-there description for a book's length? Any opinions on this from either readers or authors would be greatly appreciated and welcomed in the comments!

Traditionally, it's been the publishers acting as gate-keepers. They have their own standards on word count. Also, they publish more print books that readers can walk into a store and physically see the pages and the thickness of the book. My books only exist online. Even if I had print copies for sale, readers still couldn't tell the thickness since they can only order them online. It's more difficult as an indie ebook author to set the proper expectations for my readers as far as length. But what's the best way to do that? Should I list a word count on my book description? Or should we work together to try to come up with a different standard?

Video games have an "hours of play time" standard. Sometimes video games, especially RPG's, will say "over 100 hours of play time". For gamers, this makes sense and it is generally understood that everyone plays at different rates, so it might not literally take everyone 100 hours to play through the game. On the other hand, some people are slower and might take 200 hours to play. But it's still a numerical indication of how much content is available. I sometimes wonder if it would be valuable to do the same thing for books? For example, I could say Beautiful Demons has three hours of straight reading time. The questions would be how to determine how fast the average reader reads and whether or not this would make sense to readers.

My purpose in writing shorter novels is that I can write them faster and price them cheaper. If I was writing 90,000 word books, I would only be able to release a book every 4 or 5 months at best. Then, since I invested so much more time and would have less books on my virtual shelves, I would have a hard time listing that book at $0.99. With a 50,000-60,000 word book, I can come out with a new book every 2-3 months and give my readers more content more quickly and can price the books low and still make money. For me, it's a win-win. I just don't like the thought of some people buying the book and being disappointed to find it shorter than they expected.

So writers and readers, what is the best way for an Indie author to set up the right expectations for their readers so that readers aren't disappointed and can find the right length content for their needs? With self-publishing becoming more and more popular, you can find downloads that are anywhere from 10,000 word short stories all the way up to 200,000 word epic dramas. The question is how to properly tell the reader where my book falls. Page count seems a bit archaic since there are not technically pages in an ebook. So what would you suggest? I would love to hear any comments and opinions on this matter so please let me know!