There’s no law that a novel must be a certain length. But there are strong conventions. Reedsy keeps a genre-by-genre breakdown that matches what agents see, and readers and agents feel them even when they can’t name them. A book that’s the “wrong” length often gets rejected before anyone reads a sentence, so know where your genre sits.

The ranges, by genre

  • Literary / upmarket fiction - 70,000 to 100,000
  • Fantasy & science fiction - 90,000 to 120,000 (epic fantasy stretches higher)
  • Romance - 70,000 to 90,000 (category romance can be shorter)
  • Thriller / mystery / crime - 70,000 to 90,000
  • Young adult - 50,000 to 80,000
  • Middle grade - 30,000 to 55,000

These aren’t hard walls. They’re the fat middle of the bell curve, which is exactly where an agent’s eyes relax instead of narrowing.

Why the number matters more than it should

Word count is a proxy for craft, and agents read it that way. A 150,000-word debut thriller doesn’t say “epic,” it says “this writer hasn’t learned to cut.” A 45,000-word “adult novel” reads as a novella that isn’t sure what it is, which is a harder sell than either a real novel or a real novella.

None of that is fair to the actual book. It’s just the pattern a slush pile teaches you, and you’re being read by people who’ve seen a lot of slush.

What to do if you’re over or under

If you’re over, the fix is almost always cutting, not splitting. Do a self-editing pass looking for scenes that don’t change anything, subplots that could be one subplot, and description doing work the reader already did. Most bloated drafts have 15 to 20% of pure air in them. Splitting a long book into two only works if book one has its own real ending, which most don’t.

If you’re under, resist the urge to pad. Thin books are usually thin on story, not on words, so add plot and consequence, not adjectives. Ask what your protagonist wants, what’s stopping them, and whether you’ve made them earn it.

The exception to all of this is established authors, who get to break the range because a publisher already trusts the length will sell. Your first book doesn’t have that credit yet. Hit the range now, break it once you can.

If you want to keep an eye on the number while you draft, Galley shows a live word count per chapter and for the whole book, so you always know where you are without pasting into a counter.

Outside the app, novel word count by genre puts your number against the range agents expect for your shelf, and the reading time calculator turns it into the hours it costs a reader.