How many words is an average sized novel?

Question

I just recently wrote a story that is 31 chapters and a little over 180,000 words and I was just wondering if that is more or less than a decent sized novel.

Answer 1

I have written a novel which is currently in the process of being self-published.  It has 270,500 words approximately which produces a novel of 700+ pages, somewhat lengthy, perhaps, but necessarily.  I would say that your 180,000 words should be just about right for a novel.  You really wouldn't want it to be too short.

Answer 2

Wow. Umm, that's actually about two decent sized novels!

Most genre fiction novels run between 80K-120K, depending on genre. For instance, you won't find many romance novels over 100K, but fantasy and sci-fi barely even blink at 150K. YA novels tend to be shorter, but not always.

At this point -- and congratulations for finishing! -- you might want to start looking around at which publishers you want to target. Check their submissions guidelines (sometimes on their websites, but you should also check Writers Market) and see what they're looking for as far as word count goes.

Now you get the fun of revising, tightening and trimming, if need be.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Hey,

Most are in the region of about 100,000 but obviously it depends for every novel :)

xxxx

Answer 4

Use a scale of 250-350 words per page to get an idea of the length. One thing that may want to consider is that most publishing companies will not publish anything over 120,000 words for a new author. The longer the book, the more it costs to publish it. That is why a lot of author's first books tend to be a bit thinner than later works.