It seems that along with e-books has come a quest for less lengthy novels and shorter books have more appeal these days. Amazon has introduced Kindle Singles which offers books of around 10,000 to 30,000 words (approx. 30-90 pages of a printed book).
Typical book word count
Novel 50,000 words or more
Novella 20,000 to 50,000
Novelette 7,500 to 20,000
Short Story - 1,000 to 7,499
Flash Fiction - 100 to 1,000
I've found that publishing houses require 75,000 - 80,000 minimum word count for a novel (depending on the publishing house). But romance novels, such as Harlequin novels, usually run around 55,000 to 65,000 words as are cozy mysteries.
Word count per genre here.
Some of the recent changes have come about because of e-readers. Who wants to read War and Peace (580,000 words) on a SmartPhone?
My last book, Gwinnel Gardens, is around 150 pages and around 50,000 words. My next two novels (due for publication in February) are both of similar length. None of my books are over 250 pages.
The Cozy Mystery Blog has a post on lengthier novels with lots of "fluff" here
What are your thoughts on shorter novels?
