Your eBook Length: Does Size Matter?

by Will Viharo

When it comes to stuff like Godzilla movies, pro wrestling, pizza parties and, well, other things, size can definitely matter. But what about your eBook? Since it costs the same to upload the file no matter how big or small it is, what are the major considerations? Well, the potential reader, for one.

Throughout literary history, novels have varied in length, depending on both commercial concerns and artistic aspirations. There are your basic epics like Tolstoy's War and Peace (about 560,000 words in the English translation) and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (roughly 423,575 words); your much slimmer novellas (or “short novels”) like Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (29,160), Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (approx. 27,000), and Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's (26,433); and then your average length books, falling somewhere between 60,000 and 110,000 words (Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye clocks in at 73,404 words, for example). This article lists many more famous titles with sometimes surprising word counts.

Scholars of the subject vary in their opinions of what length to shoot for, if any. The general expert consensus is your book should be at least 70,000 words to be considered a major league contender, but not more than 100,000 if you're an unproven commodity. Those same industry observers also acknowledge there are many legitimate variables like the subjective art of storytelling which may alter the outcome. The key to success has more to do with content than volume – quality over quantity.

Still, as with any creative endeavor marketed for purchase in a busy field, you should assume your effort will not be the exception, even if you're promoting your product as wholly unique. Many authors who choose to publish only digital versions of their books are content with writing “novelettes” which can be as little as 10,000 words, up to 50,000 words (the rough tally of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five). When sold at only 99 cents, these briefer efforts can prove both lucrative for the author and a better deal for the reader, in terms of expense as well as time.

As with many aspects of the modern publishing industry, the DIY digital revolution has changed many of the rules simply by breaking them, opening the market for authors who can tell their stories more economically without the pressures of big publishing companies demanding “beach books,” as well as longer-winded scribes who, thanks to new technologies - whether it's eBooks or POD (Print On Demand), don't have to worry about killing too many trees with their seemingly endless page-turners.

Some general guidelines when editing your book:

• If this is your first novel, don't immediately overstay your welcome; consider it your audition piece – you can try something more ambitious next time, after you've earned some “street cred.”
• The genre can help determine the length – for instance, thrillers and romances popularly fall in the 65,000-80,000 range (with exceptions like Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, 157,508); while sci-fi/fantasy/horror titles routinely exceed 100,000, often by a lot (Stephen King averages 450,000 words; J.K. Rowling 250,000); research your target market.
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• If you've already sold a few books with varying word counts, you may want to compare which lengths have proven more popular with your particular audience.
• For the print edition of your book, the final word count will determine the cover's trim size, whether it's a basic 5x7 paperback novel, or a larger 6x9 (the general dimensions for non-fiction), or some other size appropriate to the volume of content.

Bottom line: just keep writing until your story feels finished. No need to pad it out or top it off like you're filling a bucket of popcorn. Your book should be as long as it takes to wrap everything up satisfactorily. In the end, that will satisfy most readers – and leave them wanting more, which is where sequels come in. No need to use up all your words under a single cover...

As a reader, how short is too short, how long is too long, or what is just right when it comes to your ideal eBook-length?