How many words in a 200-page book

How long should your book be? Does it even matter? Isn’t the art as long as the art needs to be for you to tell your story? Book length is a technical question a world away from the craft, but yes, having a word count guide absolutely matters—even at the earliest stages of drafting your novel.

A draft becomes a manuscript, which quickly becomes something to send to literary agents and then editors, and then suddenly, voila! It becomes a book.

How many words in a 300-page book

And a book is a product, and every page is a dollar amount and a time value investment to publishers. If you’re coming in way under or over, publishers won’t want to invest in your product. See why it matters to consider word count at the early stages, and to move away from thinking about book length in terms of “art”?

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule (more below), but publishing has standards which you should meet if you expect to be taken seriously as a professional author.

Otherwise, it just screams maverick, lazy, or obtuse. As mentioned several times on Aspiring Author, publishing is a business, with rules to follow. If you

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