Length

My target for the book I’m writing is 75,000 words. or thereabouts. The two books I published in the last year, First and Next Time, came in at 125k and 85k, respectively. Which brings up a couple of questions: why so wordy on the first two? Why come in at such a low word count on the new one? When I finished the draft for First, it came in somewhere in the 117-118k range, if I remember correctly. I actually had to add more to the story to explain a couple of things, increasing its word count. Could I have pared it down by 40-50k words? Probably, if I really, really tried, but it would’ve lost a lot of character development. I know, I know, writing teachers are rolling their eyes at that one. I haven’t heard anyone complain that it’s too long. As for Next Time, it came in at just the right length, at least to my thinking. Again, I probably could’ve pared 10k words, but I like how it ended up. Given that I think those are good word counts, why try for lower? Well, it’s easy. With my self-publishing company, 75k is the standard novel length. Anything above that incurs in extra charge for formatting and increases the cost of producing a paperback book. It all boils down to economics.