Every word counts

And why less is probably more

By the time you are ready to submit your book to an agent or publisher, you want every word in your manuscript to be the best it can possibly be.

Yup. Every. Single. One.

But how many words should there be in your book in the first place? And why does that even matter?

Word counts might not sound like a very exciting thing to consider when writing a book, but they are surprisingly important.

As we explained last week, the more commercial your book is - the clearer it is who is it written for, what age group it is aimed at and which books it will sit alongside in a shop - the more chance you will have of it getting published.

It is more cost effective from a production point of view to print a book that is in a recognisable format with a standard page extent. These books are also easier to shelve in a shop.

The longer your book is, the more it will cost to print, especially since printing and shipping costs have increased dramatically in the last few years.

If your book is extremely long, and in a weird format, it will make it less profitable and therefore less appealing to the publisher during an acquisitions meeting. (More on what that is and what actually happens at one another time).

To give yourself the best shot of writing a story that will get through that all important acquisitions meeting it helps to write a book that is the right sort of length to begin with.

So how long should your manuscript be?