Your Complete Publisher Specializing in Unabridged Works

Sounds harsh, huh? Well, it is, and it needs to be. Too many people focus on story length. Now don’t get me wrong, if you set out to write a short story, then it should be a short story. A short story is listed as being somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 words but this is often debated. Some believe a short story ends at 7,500 words. In truth the story length ends where the publisher needs it to end to fit inside their anthology or book or magazine.

Here is a list of word counts for various book length types:

Short story – 1,000 to 10,000

Novelette – 7.500 to 20,000

Novella – 20,000 to 50,000

Novel – 50,000 to 110,000

Epics – 110,000+

Epics have become an entirely new category thanks to writers like George R. R. Martin, of Game of Thrones fame, who write epics and do so, well. 

I often tell my authors to let go. And I mean it. Let go of everything and tell your story. If it needs to be trimmed, we will catch it in the editing process. The same with adding content. If the story lacks and needs some type of boost, we can add it in the editing phase.

So many get caught up about word counts. As I said before - I don’t care. Let me give you an example. Recently I was presented with the second book in the Cheyenne series titled The Rescue of Rhonda. It was a whopping 140,000 words.

Did I care? No. the first thing I did was read it. Read each chapter as a separate entity. Let the story speak for itself. In the process of introducing myself to the story I noted there were several places where the story lagged. This was due to an overabundance of information most readers don’t care about. How many of you care about the minute details about a jet? 

I removed these details to enhance the story. Up the speed and tempo of the story itself. Did this in chapter after chapter. Removed several chapters which didn’t have anything to do with the main story. These were distracting and unnecessary. By the time I was done, the story had been whittled down from 140,000 words to 77,000 words.

Did I do this with the intention of creating a work that fit into a specified word count? Nope. I did it because it enhanced the story. The story is everything with me. If something needs to go – it goes. Period. If it needs to be added, we add it. Word count be damned. 

Which is the attitude I encourage with any author. I don’t do this with writers. Writers have to be conscious of word counts in everything they do. Take this blog. Blogs need to be somewhere between 500 and 1500 words. Why? It’s because somewhere someone did some research and discovered readers like this amount of words in blog posts. They like pictures too by the way. Just saying. 

Anyways, writers write to fit the needs of their clients. Authors don’t. They need to pay attention to their story. The story is all important to the author and to me as a publisher. Is it a good story? Will it sell? If it is a good story but won’t sell, I sometimes will publish it just so it is out there. 

However, I am a businessman so whether or not I think a story will sell does play a part in my decisions to publish a book. Word count doesn’t. I want a story, not a collection of words built to fit into someone’s else’s idea of what length a novel should be. 

There you go, my ideas about word counts.

I’m Ross, The Editor-in-Chief at The Pyrateheart Press and I’m out.