Finally! I found someone who lays out the word count targets for different types of books and genres. She’s a former professional agent, and knows of which she speaks!
I’d always wondered how long was too long, or too short in terms of word count. Check the link for details.
science fiction & fantasy = Here’s where most writers seem to have problems. Most editors I’ve spoken to recently at major SF/F houses want books that fall into the higher end of the adult fiction you see above; a few of them told me that 100k words is the ideal manuscript size for good space opera or fantasy. For a truly spectacular epic fantasy, some editors will consider manuscripts over 120k but it would have to be something extraordinary. I know at least one editor I know likes his fantasy big and fat and around 180k. But he doesn’t buy a lot at that size; it has to be astounding. (Read: Doesn’t need much editing.) And regardless of the size, an editor will expect the author to to be able to pare it down even further before publication. To make this all a little easier, I broke it down even further below:
via The Swivet [Colleen Lindsay]: All new & revised: On word counts and novel length.
