E-book Book Length

[LazloFerran]

I am a writer and my main two genres at the moment are science fiction and horror. I sell quite a lot of horror on amazon (unfortunately less science fiction than horror) and most of these are e-books. In fact the ratio of kindles to paperbacks is at least 200-1 I reckon. Therefore it seems better to me to concentrate on putting together an novel around the e-book format that worrying too much about paperbacks. This does leave me with a dilemna though: how long should the book be?

The standard paperback length is 60-80,000 words but why cater to this standard if you don't sell many paperbacks. Why not publish at 90,000 words (provided you have already done a fairly brutal edit to remove all but the essential bits)? Of course the paperback version will be a couple of dollars more expensive, but then if somebody really wants a paperback they are probably willing to pay that.

What are the views of others?

 

[Vertigo]

I would have thought the format is irrelevant to the length. I read long books and short ones both as ebooks and paperbacks (mostly ebooks these days when I can get them) and I am equally aware of the size of the book whichever format I choose. As far as pricing goes most ebooks from the main publishers are priced according to the paperback price; bigger book more expensive paperback more expensive ebook. I suppose if you are self publishing then you can price the ebooks lower if you so choose, however it could be argued that a longer book has required more work and so justifies a higer price, so long, as you say yourself, that it is not long just because it is filled with fluff.

 

[Dozmonic]

For general fiction, horror, crime, thriller etc 80-100k is the standard length of paperbacks released today. For fantasy you're generally looking at 100-120k. 60-80k is more the paranormal romance / teen fiction length. Even so, you can sell books of almost any length in both formats. It's just when you start doing your own audio books that you thank the gods you only wrote 60k rather than 120k ;-)

 

[Lord Soth]

I personally think length is irrelevant, its not something I actively even check when I purchase a book. The only things I check are the synopsis, reviews from good sites / friends (or this forum) and the picture on the front :/

 

[Metryq]

"Too many notes."

I'm suddenly reminded of a high school biology teacher when one of the class asked the predictable question, "How long does the paper have to be?"

With a grin, he replied, "Like a girl's skirt: short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the subject."

 

[Perpetual Man]

I don't really think that format matters. A story is as long as it is, no matter what format. If you start cutting or extending just to meet an expected word count then there is something wrong somewhere.

When I do write (and apart from NaNoWriMo) I have made no attempt to write anything other than short stories recently, but when I did try to write novels I would not even consider word count until I finished. I would write until the story was told. Then edit. Rewrite. Edit, And then look at the word count.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I agree with the others, length is largely irrelevant to the type of novel you write. And with the arrival of ebooks, you no longer have to concern yourself with the physical limitations of binding either. Just write the stories as you feel they need to be written. Personally my novels range from 70 something k to 180k, the fantasy ones being longer then the sci fi ones.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[biodroid]

Not sure what the problem is, if you look at Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings, that book is both in paperback and e-book, they are both over 1000 pages long and no issues. I downloaded it for my Kindle to read in the future and it only took 60 seconds or less to download (depending on connectivity of course). But if you are worried about the length of let's say a horror novel, Stephen King wrote some of the best horror books that were over 1000 pages long (IT) and I assume that's way more than 100K words. Is Amazon limiting you in size?