Word count

I apologize for not blogging more these past few weeks -- my life is going to be pretty busy through January, so my blogging probably won't be consistent. But I promise I will still blog when I can!

Today, I thought I'd talk about word count. I find word count to be confusing because there are so many different ways to count words -- the Microsoft Word tool, multiplying the number of pages by 250 words, and the old way where you had to count the number of lines per page, figure out your average number of words per line, and then multiply that by the number of pages.

However, I know a lot of editors and agents discount word length and actually go by the page count of your novel. For instance, we learn that a YA manuscript should be between 60,000 to 80,000 words (and maybe longer for fantasy). I spoke to an agent today, and she wants the manuscripts to be between 200 to 250 pages (and no more than 300 for fantasy -- especially not for a debut novel).

This agent also told me that right now, picture books should be snappy and no more than 500 words (unless it's nonfiction, and then it can be over a thousand words).

MG should be 25,000 to 30,000 words (80 to 100 pages).