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Q&A 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 m...

3 answers  ·  posted 12y ago by Shantnu Tiwari‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:22:59Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/5706
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Shantnu Tiwari‭ · 2019-12-08T02:22:59Z (almost 5 years ago)
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?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2012-05-20T01:15:54Z (over 12 years ago)
Original score: 13