Word Counts DO Matter, Actually... | Hey, Past Avril...

Welcome to the first in a new series I'm calling "Hey, Past Avril..."

Not long ago, I read through every single one of my old blog posts to make some minor tweaks and reformat the earliest ones after some assets got jumbled in the transition from one hosting platform to the current one. And along the way, I noticed my stance on some things has changed over the years. Writing is a process of evolution as a result of personal experiences, research, time and, perhaps most important of all, writing.

There have been shifts. Said is dead is a prime example (which I've already covered here).

Hence, the creation of Hey, Past Avril...

For this first entry, it feels only fitting to throw it all the way back to one of the very first blog posts.

Hey, Past Avril...

Word counts do matter, actually.

Back in the day, I saw word counts as an arbitrary metric. National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, had a goal of completing a novel of 50,000 words in the month of November. If you go by genre, each has its own range, often exceeding that 50,000. For example, roughly 90,000 words for a romance novel vs 100,000 to 120,000 words as a fantasy baseline. Not to mention that two books within the same genre may have very different word counts.

I was of themind that word counts were inconsequential, that a book's length should be based more on how long it takes to tell the story effectively, thus, authors should focus more on telling the story than reining their word counts into these "arbitrary" metrics; after all, Jane Austen herself wrote, "If a book is well written, I always find it too short." If a manuscript was good enough, its word count shouldn't matter.

This stance may also have been influenced by the fact that the book I was writing throughout my teens and early 20s was coming in at a hot 180,000 words—which I eventually brought down to 160,000 before shelving the project. On the one hand, I still congratulate past Avril on writing something that long and actually sticking with it for that long. But on the other, Guises to Keep's length is just one of the reasons it probably won't see the light of day anytime soon.

Because word counts do indeed matter.

A key factor of that is reader experience. Reading is a time commitment, and some readers may be turned off by a tome-length novel. While they might not be thinking in terms of word count, they can look at how dense a book is, see 600+ pages, and dip.

It's also important to understand word counts from the genre perspective. Fantasy novels tend to have a higher word count because there's usually more worldbuilding and exposition happening than there'd be in a contemporary romance.

Many writers incorporate word counts into their plotting and beat sheets as a way to keep themselves on track. As an example, a romance author might plan to have the meet-cute occur within the first 2,000 words of their story, meaning that if they've hit 3,000 before the love interests' first interaction, they might need to tighten things up. Extraneous scenes and scenes that are too long are a common cause of bulkier word counts, so using word counts as a guide for pacing makes sure everything is happening when it ought.

Word counts also matter on the business side of writing and publishing. It's one of the figures included in a query letter because it can a) potentially clue an agent into how much substance there is in your manuscript vs fodder, b) indicate you understand and can abide by the rules of the publishing game (perhaps indicating how easy you'll be able to work with as a client) and c) indicate how easily they'll be able to market your manuscript to publishers.

Because at the end of the day, publishing is a business. Publishers have more concerns than whether or not a book is good enough to sell to readers. They have to consider the production costs from paying their editors (who often charge by the word) and formatters to the materials needed to print a physical copy. The longer the book, the more paper you need.

It's also worth noting that self-published authors pay out of their own pockets for print runs, so all of this applies to them as well.

This can also impact the price of the book once it hits shelves and, by extension, its sales. Publishers need to recover those costs. Plus, you can fit more 90,000-word books in a box than 120,000-word books.

Everything in the publishing biz is a gamble. There's no way to know for certain whether or not a book will do well. Publishers have to bear that in mind as they're acquiring new manuscripts. Debut authors come with the highest risk because they have no proven record of sales. It's just the same reason they likely won't allocate as much of their marketing budget to a newcomer's book as they would for an established author they know will sell and therefore return on that investment. A debut romance novel broaching 120,000 words presents a higher printing price than one floating around that 90,000-word standard.

As the author continues to build a presence and generate sales, their publisher may permit a higher word count because they're more confident in the prospects. It's why the books in a series tend to be longer as the series goes on. A Court of Thorns and Roses is 130,423 words, pretty close to the fantasy standard, whereas A Court of Silver Flames (the most recent installment at the time of writing) is 210,289 words long.

Every rule has its exceptions. I hate to break it to you, but if you are a debut author (or a someday debuting author), you are not that exception.

Word counts do matter, more than I knew and admittedly wanted to believe when I started writing. These standards are not a high score to bear or a restriction of your creativity. Rather, they're helpful for keeping your writing goals on pace.

Nowadays, I'm more cognizant of word counts. I don't fixate on them when I draft, but I'm not as dismissive of them, either. It's something I keep in the back of my mind but don't really bring to the forefront until I start editing.

A problem for Future Avril to handle.