When you’ve finished your masterpiece and you know it’s ready for submission, it can be easy to gloss over that little number in the corner of your screen signifying wordcount. Or you might look at it and think, Oh, well, it’s not that much over my target genre count. (Because 7 or 8 thousand, give or take, is such a little number, isn’t it?) Or maybe your story is just a wee bit short. Either way, you might be tempted to believe that the mere merit of your manuscript will override any concerns about how many words are lurking inside.
Weeeeeell, not really. At least not when you’re a beginner and you’ve got nothing to show for yourself but your brand new manuscript. You see, it’s like when you take your kids to a crowded restaurant and ask for a table of five and all they’ve got are tables for two. Numbers, in restaurants and publishing houses, are logistically important.
What newer writers might not realize is that the wordcount acts very much like a foot in the door. If it’s not right the right number, the door might be slammed before you can even say First Page.
When you send your manuscript to an agent or publisher, one of the very first things they look at is the wordcount. And when I say “they”, I mean those puny people at the bottom of the food chain who have been given very specific instructions to find the wordcount and make special note of it. At that point, many of those puny people will stamp REJECT on your story before they’ve even opened your document. This is especially true if the company has told you in their submission guidelines that they specifically want a certain wordcount for your genre. Believe it or not, they really mean it when they ask you not to send a story that’s too long or too short.
“But what if my story is really, really good,” someone in the audience asks. Well, I like to remember the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park when he said: Life finds a way. Or in this case, books find a way. If your story really is outstanding, and you are persistent, someone somewhere will buy your book, but it might because you’ve gone the indie route. Self-publishing is an excellent road to take if you are positive that you can’t delete one single word from your slightly oversized baby.
However, you might also want to consider that by putting your story on a diet, it can actually go a long way in not only making it more marketable, but improving the story as well.
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