Kill your darlings. It’s a phrase you’ve all heard, but how many of you have been brave enough to be truly ruthless with your own writing, to cut in a big and bold ways when needed? How many of you have written a too-long manuscript and allowed an editor to go in and hack huge swaths of work that represented weeks, maybe months, of effort and tenacity to get on the page? Courageous writers do, but so do writers who understand the business of writing, and why too-long books are more difficult to sell. There are in fact readership, publisher, and cost considerations that factor into why the industry standard for the length of a book is 80,000 words, and I would argue that in today’s publishing climate, less is more. Here’s why:
3 Good Reasons To Keep Your Book Shorter Than 80,000 Words
I totally agree. My next book is super short for a lot of reasons, but especially cause I’ve kept #1 in mind.
Most traditional publishers have a page count that reflects their budget for the book, and it’s up to the editors to make sure the project doesn’t go over.