A Word About Word Length

     As a writer you have a story to tell, some are longer or shorter than others, however, it is safe to assume that most readers will grow weary reading a book that weighs as much as a bag of sugar and resembles an encyclopedia.  Below are suggested industry guidelines for submission of written material for publication. 

Micro-fiction is a story that is 100 words or less.

Flash  Fiction is a magazine length short story that is 100 - 1000 words in length

A short story should typically range from 1000 - 7500 words

Novelletes and Novellas are usually compilations that range from 7500 - approximately 20,000 words for the former and approximately 20,000 to roughly 50,000 words for the latter.

The ideal length for a novel is around 80,000 - 100,000 words.  Works of this length may present a problem for some novice writers and can place significant strain on budget allocations for your project.

Anything much beyond 100,000 words should probably be broken up into the primary project and a sequel.  Its a good idea to test the water with the first book to see if it is feasible to write a sequel. 

Page Length

     Although there are preferred industry standards regarding page lengths, a lot depends on the size of the font used and the finished size of the book.  An example would be a 100,000 word manuscript written in 12pt Times New Roman printed in the 5.5 x 8.5 statement size format could produce a book close to 600 pages in length. 

     Lamkin Walters Lavender will accept and consider manuscripts of any length, however, the final decision to publish rests solely on the merit of the content.