Genre Guidelines
Literary / Commercial / Women’s: 80,000 to 110,000
Crime Fiction: 90,000 to 100,000
Mysteries / Thrillers / Suspense: 70,000 to 90,000 – The variation covers Cozy Mysteries 70-75k.
Romance: 40,000 to 100,000 but for mainstream romance novels 70K-100K.
Fantasy: 90,000 to 120,000
Paranormal: 75,000 to 95,000
Horror: 80,000 to 100,000
Science-Fiction: 90,000 to 125,000
Historical: 80,000 to 120,000
Young Adult Fiction (YA): 50,000 to 80,000
Middle Grade: 25,000 to 40,000
Picture Books: 500 to 700
Short Stories: 1000 to 8,000
Novella: 20,000 to 50,000
Non-Fiction: 70,000 to 110,000
Flash Fiction: 100 to 500
The Debut Rule Breakers
There are many writers who choose the more difficult path of convincing publishing professionals that the parameters should be stretched beyond the norm and that their manuscript justifies a larger word count. Now regarded as classics, these debut novels had to be edited to reduce them to these published word counts.
1. Remembrance Rock: 530,030
2. Gone with the Wind: 418,053
3. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: 308,931
4. Memoirs of a Geisha: 186,418
5. Jane Eyre: 183,858
6. Catch-22: 174,269
7. White Teeth: 169,389
8. Watership Down: 156,154
What is this for? A competition? Please message me because I would be more than interested if it is!