Self publishing: Do I still need to follow the arbitrary word count limits?
I am thinking of going down the self publishing path. Now looking at most agents and publishers websites, it seems the expected word count for most novels is around 70-90K. Now these word counts may have made sense in the traditional world, where books had to be printed, bound and shipped all over the world.
If I am self publishing in digital format. Do I still need to follow these arbitrary word count limits?
I ask, as I have a 60k novel, which is longer than a novella (50k words), but shorter than what agents expect. Originally, I was going to add another 10-15k words, mainly by adding more plot, and developing sub plots. But now, I'm wondering, is it worth the effort?
Do readers care for these word count limits? Is it worth me padding in the extra words, to meet the limit of traditional publishers, when I'm going to self publish?
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My feeling is that you shouldn't add more words than the story needs to be told properly, regardless of how it's being published. Why pad it with garbage?
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"Do I still need to follow these arbitrary word count limits". Firstly, no, you don't have to -as a self-pubber, you're the publisher and you do what you want with your book. Secondly, as a reader, the reader decides whether your book suits his tastes, his expectations price-wise, quality-wise, length wise, etc. Thirdly, as a publisher of some 18 years standing, although I also started with similar feelings to yours, I can assure you that such limits/guidelines aren't arbitrary; they grow from experience and the realization that the reader's opinion is all that counts, if you want his money. The saying "customer is king" applies to books as well as other products.
Ebooks are much less restrictive than paper books but the reader is still the final arbiter, so it's well worth doing all one can to get the formula right.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/12191. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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You're quite correct in your assumption that digital publishing removes a lot of the necessity of typical length categories. Here's some things to bear in mind when coming to a decision.
There's no restriction except "what works well for the story." Traditional publishing is bound by all sorts of restrictions and best-practices - printing costs, shelf space, product appearance, etc. etc. You're free of those. All you have left is making sure that your story is as good as possible - including that its length is appropriate, that it works well.
However, length categories have also evolved for certain reasons. Writing practices, story structures, and reader expectations have all developed in concert with those length categories. What this means is that an odd length may (may) indicate that your novel is an "odd duck" of some sort. That's a sign that you should devote special attention to this topic - basically, making sure that if it is an odd duck, then that's for good reason, and the unusual element works well.
So consider the possibility that your book is too short (as you fear) or too long (a long novella, not a short novel). Feedback will help - be sure to ask specfically about structure and pacing. As long as those are OK, though, you're doing fine.
Once you've determined your length, be sure to market appropriately. Readers want a sense of what they're buying, and I don't know if you offer pagecount on ebooks. So do try and give a reasonable impression of how long the book is when you're marketing and publicizing it - readers might be jarred by a story much longer or much shorter than they're expecting.
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