In the old days, 80,000 words was the standard target. But I keep hearing that presses prefer shorter books nowadays. (“Cheaper to print, easier to read!”)
I haven’t heard any updates about the ideal target length, however. When I ask around, colleagues still often say 80,000 words — but those are the Old Ways! “Shorter” must surely mean “shorter than the old standard,” right?
So I turn to the series editors, authors, and publishers among you: what is the “new” sweet spot for academic presses in History? Is it 70,000? Is 60,000 too short, or is that the new sweet spot? What have you heard?
Comments
80000 all in (including notes and biblio) is the short end of normal. Anything between 80-120K is standard, though up to 150K is not unheard of for first books. Significantly under 80K would be noticeably short.
History tends to be 100-110k words still? at least in my subfield. the claim is that shorter books might seem light.
Series editor here. 80K is on the short side. It costs very little to print books. That can’t really be an issue.
I’m in history and anything below 100k would be sceptically received by most editors. They claim that a thesis rarely can be cogently backed in less space than that. My first book was 120k and the current one will be about 100k. However, there are always individual exceptions.
80k is what I was given by my UK university publisher, realistically it will be 90k all included.
80k is already super short for a monograph, if you make it shorter it’s going to be a novella.
My first book was 86K all in. A commissioning editor from another publisher told me recently that they’d expect up to 100-120K.
I have a topic that would suit one of those short-form books (too long for an article, too short for a monograph). I’ve reviewed and read a few of those shorter books, which were very good. However, I wonder if it’s worth the effort – publishing 2-3 articles instead carries more weight.
My recent book is about 140,000 (that includes the bibliography).
Honestly, it didn’t feel long enough, but the goal was to provide a book that could be used by non-specialists across different fields.
My next book, though, will be about 300,000 words. But this will be a comprehensive tome on a subject that barely anyone has written about before in detail.
My first book was a hair under 75, which is pretty short. My current project is gonna be, uh, longer than that.