How short can your novel be and still have somewhat of a chance out there in the publishing world? I'm not writing genre so I don't know if makes a difference. I was thinking I might be good at 50k or 60k words. I know that sounds short, but I don't think it is for me. And I know there are novels between 200 and 300 pages. I just don't know if those are harder sales. Can a debut novel be short like this?
I believe anything over 40K hits novel territory. Here's a link to a list of well-known novels that are around the 50K mark: https://www.wikiwrimo.org/wiki/List_of_50,000_Word_Novels
How do you plan to sell it then? Serious question: why would anyone buy an unknown product (debut writer/novel) that doesn't fit into a known market? I'm not trying to sound like a dick (or derail the thread), but that's the antithesis of a good investment, and publishing is about as extreme as a buyer's market gets. Your question about word count is largely tied to genre. I mean, what are you going to write in your query letter? Title, word count, and genre are the first three things you mention. You're into literary fiction, right? That's a genre. Or at least a category along with commercial and upmarket.
The lowest minimum word count I've ever seen for novels is 40,000. That said, 50,000 is a much more common lower limit in my experience.
Literary works are not genre. Literary is not a genre, it is kind of the opposite of genre. Honestly, I'm not too worried about it. I know people who have sold books that would be referred to as literary and not genre. I can understand how maybe this isn't clear to genre authors, but not everyone writes genre.
Thanks, everyone. I was thinking I needed to reach a word count that was at least double what you guys are saying.
