Let's Talk About Length and Girth

Calm down. I'm talking about book length and how fat that book is. Geesh.

Every once in a while I get a question about my book length. I am very fortunate to be able to say that most of the time, readers requesting longer books are doing so only out of a love of the story and a wish for it to continue. However, there are a few old-school people kicking around out there who think nothing under 100,000 constitutes a "book," regardless of format, genre, or common sense. This debate is a pet peeve of mine.

Read on for my (completely unsolicited) thoughts on book length.

When I first started writing seriously and, ultimately, submitting to agents and editors, I had to follow their rules. One of the first rules is book length. Most agents at that time (it has probably changed now, this was over ten years ago) only accepted "full-length" work that had to be between 70,000 and 100,000 words. Too short, and they wouldn't even look at it. Too long, and they wouldn't even look at it. Maybe it was an amazing story. Didn't matter. Length, and ultimately how thick your book would be in print form, was the first thing in a long list of items that would get you "disqualified" from the race before you even began, regardless of quality or any other actually important creative area.

So, I wrote the books. If they were too short when they were finished, I added to them. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

But then I decided to self-publish. Over the years, I realized that I just naturally write shorter books. In fact, I enjoy reading shorter books, too. It's a pacing thing for me. I'd really rather just get to the juicy bits (ie; sex, action, plot), without an extra 50,000 words or so of filler made of unnecessary back story and side characters. I've come across books where the same scene is told through three or four different points of view. The. Same. Scene. For no reason. Head-desk.

Now, don't get me wrong here--if done right, there's nothing wrong with some length and girth. But if you don't know how to really use that size to your advantage (to tell a good story, you pervert) then it's a waste. Particularly in an age where readers want rapid releases and binge read material.

I naturally gravitate toward shorter stories. The writing flows better for me. I enjoy reading them more, so, since I was now self-publishing, it slowly began to dawn on me...I didn't have to write a certain number of words just to fit into some subjective box that defined a "real" book. I've written short novels or novellas ever since, and never looked back. Some people will probably hate this. That's okay. You do you. For me, it works.

If you are a writer and this length thing has become a thorn in your side, I encourage you to explore a little. Do what feels right for you and your writing. Because here's the ugly truth:

In traditional publishing, book length was never about the story.

It is now, and has always been about the publisher and their profit margins, and the physical stores and their display space. That's it! But, if you're self-published and selling mostly e-books or print on demand, none of that matters anymore. You are free to tell the story you want to tell, in whatever manner it needs telling. You don't have to add or remove content just to suit someone else's (outdated) template.

(I do have one big caveat to this. SERIALS are not SERIES, and NOVELLAS are not SERIALS. Please do your homework, authors, and get this right. Otherwise you're going to have some ticked off readers.)

All that aside, you're free to do as you wish...as long as you're self-published. For more information about how the physical bookstore shelves and the publishing house drive book length, you can check out this really in-depth and amazing post by author Charles Stross on his blog.  He outlines all the numbers, and all the times the expected length of things has changed over the years. (I'm sure there's another adult joke in there somewhere, but I digress).

Happy writing!