Home Resources Word count by genre
Free toolNovel word count by genre
What agents and publishers expect a book in your genre to weigh, and where yours sits against it. These are conventions rather than rules, and conventions are worth knowing before you break one.
Verdict
- Typical range
- 80,000 to 100,000
- Sweet spot
- 90,000
- Printed at 6 × 9 in
- about 290 pages
- Hours to read
- 5h 46m
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Where the ranges come from
The ranges are the ones agents and editors quote in submission guidelines and have done for years. They are conventions rather than science, so treat them as what the market is used to.
Two things move them. A debut is held to the narrower end, because nobody has bought your last book. And fantasy and science fiction run long because a reader is paying for a world as well as a story, which is why 120,000 words is unremarkable there and alarming in a crime novel.
The page count uses the same model as words to printed pages, and the reading time uses 260 words a minute, the figure from the reading time calculator.
Galley counts as you write, per chapter and per book, and holds a target beside it. What it will not do is tell you the number is wrong. See revision.
For working things out, not for signing anything. Printers and retailers set their own rates and specifications, change them without notice, and none of them is affiliated with me or with Galley. I last checked this page in August 2026. Confirm on the official page before you commit money to a price, a print run or a contract.
Questions
How long should a novel be?
Between 70,000 and 100,000 words for most adult fiction. Under 60,000 an agent will call it a novella and struggle to sell it. Over 120,000 the printing cost rises and a debut becomes a harder yes. Fantasy and science fiction are the exceptions and run longer.
Is a first novel judged more harshly on length?
Yes. An established author can turn in 160,000 words because the sales history carries the risk. A debut at that length reads as a manuscript nobody has cut yet, and it is the cheapest reason to reject something.
Does word count matter if I am self-publishing?
Differently. No agent is counting, but the reader is, and so is the printer. Page count sets your minimum price, so a 150,000 word paperback has to be expensive. Readers also carry genre expectations about length whether or not anyone told them to.
How do I cut 20,000 words?
Not by trimming adverbs, which gets you about 2%. It comes from scenes: the ones that repeat information, the ones where nothing changes, and the second half of scenes that ended a page before you stopped writing them.
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