What's a Novel; a discussion on story length and what it means (I hope)

[XerXesXu]

This thread prompted a little research. Story length matters. The commercial sweet spot differs between traditional and digital publishing. For a digital publisher I go long, at 100,000 to 130,000, which is double the sweet spot. I don't publish commercially, so I don't care.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I've read Gatsby and it is definitely a novel and it is definitely long enough to be a novel. Every reference that I have ever looked up to define novel length states the minimum somewhere between 40k and 60k. These are all current modern online sources, be it literature sites or actual publishers guidelines.

I didn't Google search any of this, but my impression is very different. We probably read different types of fiction. I can't remember the last time I read a book under 200k words.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I base my definition on the commercial, mainstream publishing world, where companies such as Carina Press won't even consider anything less than 50K words. On the other hand, I have had stories longer than 150K words declined as being too long. It really does depend on the genre and what a publisher is in the market for at the time.

Here on Literotica, I don't have anything in the N/N category less than 50K words, with my longest being almost 180K words.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I didn't Google search any of this, but my impression is very different. We probably read different types of fiction. I can't remember the last time I read a book under 200k words.

You can define it any way that you want, but your definitions will be completely different from those of the industry.