A Cooperative Press for Indie Authors discussion

Another thing I'm curious about. I know it will vary with genre and the like, but what is your personal average word count for your books?

For myself, thus far I've mostly been writing in the "short novella" form as it works for me. My SF novellas have generally been 20,000-22,000 words long. And the horror story I wrote last week (waiting on some beta readers) ballooned up to the same length unexpectedly.

After I finish with my current series (Book 6 - the last - should be getting started... any day now) I want to concentrate on novels for a while.

But what about you guys? What have you been writing? What word counts do you prefer? Do you find most popular? And in what genres?

I only wrote two books so far (Both a mix of Dark Fantasy and Sci-fi). I didn't plan the length but both ended up around 105k each. Talk about coincidence. :P

I don't have a preference in length. As long as the story is complete, I'm happy.

G.G. wrote: "I only wrote two books so far (Both a mix of Dark Fantasy and Sci-fi). I didn't plan the length but both ended up around 105k each. Talk about coincidence. :P

I don't have a preference in length...."

A story is a long as a story should be. I also have no preference for length, only that the author put heart and soul into the writing.

My first novel, which was a murder mystery with a dash of sci-fi thrown in, came in at just over 66,000 words. As of right now, the follow-up is a little more than 73,000 words.

While working on book one of a two-volume series, I found at 175k words, that this was going to be too big. I broke it in the only logical place and decided this would be a trilogy, instead. By the time I smoothed it out and tweaked it, the first novel still wound up being 137,000 words.

My first novel was around 95,000 words and my second one in the 130,000s. The book needs to be as long as the story needs it to be.

I would also mention that short stories can now be delivered individually as eBooks, I would encourage publishing them without waiting for enough material to create a collection. I am considering including short stories on the coop website under Browse our Short Stories.

Ken means serious writing! lol. I usually write mine between 30-40,000 words although my short stories are probably half that. I just go based off however much idea and story I have in my mind. if I feel it needs more length then I'll go and add stuff where it need be.

first novel ended up 125,900 and the second one is currently 92000 and counting. Should end up in the same ballpark as the first.