Length Question

I am currently working on a novel aimed at the age group between 10-15. It has a simple plot and and simple storyline, with only two main chracters. My finished work is probably be only around 30,000. Is that a good length for that targeted age group?

 

It depends on the publisher, really. Do your research. For books aimed at 8-12 you can occassionally get away with as little as 10,000. Since your expected audience overlaps to usual demographics it's hard to say.

 

I really don't want to worry about the length right now, I think it should be the least I need to care about, but can't get it out of my mind.

 

of course it's best to just write the story and get it 'down'... but you should have some idea of how long it will be, depending on the market you're targeting... and 10-15 is too broad, imo... that's blending both the 'tween' market and the YA... and 30k is too short for the upper ages, though ok for the lowest... keeping to appropriate vocabulary, sentence structure and story elements will also be a problem for such a wide range...

go to amazon and check out the most popular books for those ages... go down to 'text stats' and 'concordance' info on each of those and you'll see what i mean... it's vital that writers of children's books do the requisite research before beginning to write, if they hope to be able to sell their work... you may also find that what you're writing has already been done...

 

I'm 15 and I read books for adults, even ones my dad finds too complex. I think 10-15 really isn't an adequate age target. 8-12 makes more sense.

 

I guess 12-15 is a more appropriate age group, some of my frends find it meaningful and touching

 

Well then the average word count is 80,000.

 

naw, not gonna worry about word count at this point at all. Just gonna go on to write my story, quality is what matters the most I guess.

 

Yeah, that's the best approach.

 

That's generally the minimum word cound for adult novels, not YA novels.

 

80,000 isn't a minimum for adult novels. It really depends on the publisher. There are many adult novels under 80,000 words.

 

the current optimum range for a first adult novel is 80-100 k... it only means if you want to have the best chance of getting it accepted, you'll keep it to that range... that said, some publishers have preferences that don't fit that 'most-preferred' range, so you should always go by the length noted in their individual guidelines...

novels for the YA market run shorter, generally... and even 30-40k is ok for for the 'tween' market... but, again, you have to check each publisher's guidelines for what they want...