Query Stats from Nathan Bransford

Today in St. Peters, MO: Sleet and snow, high 33 degrees.

Over on literary agent Nathan Bransford's January 28 blog, he posted some interesting query stats. Nathan is an agent with Curtis Brown and one of the two agents mentioned in Chuck Sambuchino's article from yesterday about word counts. I am among the almost 3,000 who follow Nathan's blog. I've found a lot of useful news and information about writing and publishing on his blog--plus it's very entertaining.

In one week while Nathan was on vacation, he received 327 queries, which he has broken down into genres, word counts, and miscellaneous factiods. Genres include the usual, plus mangst (I had to click on that link) and "no freaking clue." Word counts for manuscripts ranged from fewer than 25,000 words to 200,000 plus. Some factiods mentioned in his post are: the number of queries that begin with a rhetorical question (which he does not like), the number of queries addressed to another agent, and the number of queries that misspelled the word "query."

It's an interesting post, if you want to check it out.

Words Count, But What's the Right Word Count?

Today in St. Peters, MO: Cloudy, high 40 degrees, chance of flurries tonight.

If you've ever wondered how many words are appropriate for your manuscript, you should check out this article: Word Count for Novels and Children's Books - The Definitive Post by Chuck Sambuchino.

As an editor at Writer's Digest, Sambuchino edits the Guide to Literary Agents and the Screenwriters and Playwriter's Market. In his article, he has broken down the general rules for word counts by genre. While he notes there are some exceptions to these rules, he also notes that new writers cannot assume they are the exception to the rule.

Here's a synopsis of the counts; for details and further explanations, read his excellent post:

* Adult Novels: Commercial and Literary - 80,000 and 89,999
* Sci-fi and Fantasy - 100,000 - 115,000
* Middle grade - 20,000 - 45,000
* Young Adult - 55,000 - 69,999 (this category is very flexible)
* Picture Books - 500-S600 words (32 pages)
* Western - 50,000-80,000 (60,000 is a good target)
* Memoir 80,000-89,999 ( 70,000-79,000 is not a terrible thing)

As a reader and a writer I've always known that words matter. I also know the length of my manuscript is important. Now I can count on it!