How long is a single-title romance novel supposed to be?
My friend is a literary agent who mostly works with YA novels, but she told me recently that I should aim for about 75,000 words for my book, which I'm currently speccing out as a romance novel or maybe chick-lit, depending on how the genre-bending shakes out. (Her numbers are 250 words per page, and about 250 pages.)
However, going by the books I've enjoyed most, single-title romances tend to be 350 words per page and 350-375 pages. This comes out to over 100,000 words per book!
I know category romances (Harlequins, Mills & Boon books) are much shorter -- usually about 150 pages and about 50,000 words long -- but are single-title books really that short? To put it another way: what's the accepted wordcount range for a single-title romance novel?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/6469. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
2 answers
Publishing is a risky business. Publishers lose money on a lot of the titles they publish and new authors are a much greater risk than established ones. The longer a book, the more it costs to produce, and therefore the greater the loss if it does not sell. Therefore publishers look for books from first authors that fit into fairly narrow page range limits that they know have the best chance of selling in their genre while keeping the risks lower.
These length vary by genre and may vary over time as well. Lots of agents and organizations like Writer's digest publish the lengths are are currently selling best in every genre. It is best to consult the specific market you want to sell to to find out what they are taking at the moment.
Can you sell outside these ranges? Certainly you can, but in that case there needs to be some factor that offsets the risk you are asking the publisher to take, such as a work of exceptional quality or already having an established name or platform that will guarantee a certain level of sales.
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Your novel should be as long as it needs to be. Not shorter, not longer. Too vague? Well, that's writing ;)
Honestly I think we already answered this question, but I can't find it. To summarize out of my head:
- A novel starts around 50,000 words. That's a widely accepted figure no matter what genre you write in.
- Write, don't care about word limits. If you think all the time "Oh, I have to add something here, do that to reach [enter arbitrary word limit here]" then you only will achieve one thing: messing up your story
- Check the market. If you really want to know what's the general word length of a romance novel, look at what's published. Do not stop at the books you enjoyed. Assuming that word count has anything to do with it, is a sure road to a writing disaster.
- If a literary agent tells you to aim for 75,000 words, it is very likely that she told you a mean value (surprise: 75,000 is in the middle between 50,000 and 100,000).
So the ultimate answer to your question is:
The accepted word count range for a single-title romance novel is whatever your readers buy.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/6472. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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