what’s a typical word count for an adult fantasy
my name is Gina I’m an author editor
publishing professional I help you make your writing better
this answer varies greatly
depending on the subgenre of fantasy that you are writing
and how long you have been writing this
if you you are a fan of fantasy
then you know for sure that there are lots of books published every single year
that are like 350,000
450,000 words and that these sell well and people enjoy them
if you are a debut author
it is extremely unlikely not impossible
but extremely unlikely
that publishing is going to allow you to with something that long
it is extremely financially risky to put out a book that long
and when I say that people tend to be like eh
how much can paper cost but it’s not just the cost of the paper
it is the fact that the editor has to read that book
they have to pay an editor to do the editing work on that book
and it takes four times as long as a shorter book would
and then we have to pay be a proofreader and a line editor
and a formatter and a designer
and then yeah
the cost of paper and printing
and if you’re like okay
but like paper cost an extra 5 cents
okay but when it is an extra 50% on 10,000 copies
an extra 50% on 20,000 copies
you can see how this gets very expensive very quickly
and if you get up over a certain length
you have to bind the book together differently
they have to be in hardbacks first in order to make up that cost difference
so they become very heavy to ship
even the paperbacks are very heavy to ship
they take up more space on the shelf
so bookstores are less likely to wanna risk buying a bunch of copies
because they don’t want 12 copies eating up an entire shelf in their bookstore
so like
you can see how this becomes expensive and risky
to be writing much longer books from somebody who is unproven
and we don’t know if they’re going to sell well yet
and so while it is definitely
absolutely possible
that you have fallen in love with books that are nearly a half a million words
or sometimes even longer in the adult fantasy space
if you are a debut author
they are still going to hope that you are closer to that
hundred thousand word mark
that’s not a rule it’s a guideline
it’s not hard and fast
and adult fantasy is definitely one of those genres that will creep up over that
like mythical hundred thousand word mark
you will still see debut authors coming out with hundred and fifty
hundred and seventy hundred and eighty thousand words
which you’re like that’s almost double
and it is this is a really niche genre
it’s not the space where we are printing 100,000 copies of these books
it’s not the space where we are expecting
50,000 copies to sell out on the first print run
so like
there is a little bit more wiggle room here
and you do need more words in order to do immersive world building
to introduce people especially if you’re writing something like epic fantasy
the like there’s just more going on
and so you do need more of those words
adult science fiction fantasy
and historical are where you’re often going to see debut authors
getting a little bit longer word count
but that is still not guaranteed
and the closer you are to 100,000 words
the better you look
and the more you can demonstrate in your Query Letters synopsis
in the opening pages that you have earned every extra word
you’re being very concise with your language
you’re starting in the right place
you can demonstrate all of that in your submission materials
it’s going to go a long way as well