HOW many words is that????
A post by a friend made me refer back to one of my favorite lists for writers: Word Count for Famous Novels (organized). I first stumbled across it clipped as a tumblr post, but the link is to the original 2011 blog post.
I was taught young that the word counts are approximated by using the rule-of-thumb “250 words to a page.” Pick up most any fiction book you read, and unless the pages (but not the font) are oversize or the text super-small, chances are good the word count will be near that mark. Keep in mind that this rule-of-thumb is centuries old, and was originally based on the limitations of old Gutenberg style printing presses and hand-folded/cut paper. It’s held because, seriously, think about trying to figure out the specific number of words in a book without a computer.
What a nightmare.
These days we are spoiled by simply checking the word count track in our word processor of choice, but even then, you might find out that your MS Word document is 10,347 words but the same document imported into Scrivener or Pages is 10,339. Where the hell did those extra eight words go? Were they words?
Only our computer overlords know.
Anyway, I’m working on a longer piece about publishing and writing and how it has changed from the 1990s–nothing that people in the business don’t know, but I think those who are newer writers and not plugged in to all the indie writers outlets that I am might not know.
I realized while writing it that one of the things that’s changed considerably is how a book size is measured.
Years ago it was how many typed pages it was (at presumably 250 words per page, one reason why publishers were very strict about submission guidelines, so they could estimate the costs of printing based on a manuscript). Now, though, unless they are very tradition bound, most publishers (and certainly indie publishers) go by word count. I actually got into the groove of doing word counts when I started writing fanfiction again in 2007, because that was part of the metadata everyone posted with their stories (along with “rating”, “pairing”, “fandom”, “genre”). It was helpful, actually, to be able to accurately compare story size, especially as a reader; did I want to drown in a 100,000 word epic, or frolic with a 7,000 word short story?
If you look at the list I linked above, you might be surprised that some famous works are so short, and unsurprised that others as so long. Like, who does not believe that War and Peace is 587,287 words long? That’s To Kill a Mockingbird (100,388) five times over. Which itself is twice as long as Slaughterhouse 5.
If you are self publishing, word count is fairly non-important, except for marketing purposes. The digital age has seen a resurgence in the popularity of novellas (under 50,000) and short stories (under 10,000 or 20,000, depending on whom you ask) since the profit margin of publishing those as ebooks is pretty good.
My book, Wolves of Harmony Heights, was meant to be a NaNoWriMo story and clock in at 50,000. It’s draft is about ~170,000 (equal in length, but surely not quality, to Grapes of Wrath and Catch-22). I can self publish it at zero cost, unless I hire someone to design the cover for me, which might put me back a few hundred dollars. The fact that it is a 170,000 word polyamorous paranormal adventure romance about a single mother with a biracial son…well, back in the day, that would have been way too many words to risk money to print on something as “weird” as that.
I guess my point is, word counts are fun and revealing, but they have ceased to be important.