The Author Guy Blog by Larry B. Gildersleeve
2nd February 2024 Hello out there, Welcome back. Last week, I wrote about my affection for short books and offered several recommendations. But what is worth sharing, I believe, is that for authors penning short manuscripts, they’re swimming against the tide. Actually, more like a tsunami of bias driven by arbitrary (in my opinion) word count thresholds. To be considered “a novel” by agents, editors, publishers and professional reviewers, a manuscript must contain a minimum of 65,000 words, with 120,000 words carrying the author into a danger zone of overkill in terms of acceptability. When the word count fails to chin the bar of 65,000 words, the term “novella” comes into play – and more often than not, derisively. I’ve read and been told that short books “cheat” a reader, somehow lessening enjoyment and not offering good value for the purchase price. Others may think that way, but not me. Last week, among the short books I recommended are Love Story, Bridges of Madison Co...