#wordcount

MG books and Chapter Books are different species with different norms. If you don't know the difference, I've answered MANY questions about that, look in the pinned FAQ! But basically: MG books are for 8-12 year olds who are fluent independent readers. Chapter books are for about 6-9 year olds who are still gaining confidence with independent reading. MG books can be standalone or series; Chapter books are pretty much always part of a series. 10k words is quite short for a MG novel (whether or not it is illustrated). It's long for a chapter book.

I would suggest you figure out what it is you are trying to write. Then look up popular books that are sorta like the kinda book you are imagining, see how long they are, and aim for something about that length. Really. It's that easy.

So for example, let's say you want to write a MG novel with a lot of illustrations, such as Katherine Applegate's POCKET BEAR. Go to AR Book Find, look it up. It's about 29k words. LAST KIDS ON EARTH is 21k. STUNTBOY is 29k. LOST EVANGELINE is very short for a MG: 14k. There might be some MG books that are 10k words, but that would definitely be quite low for a MG.

IF, on the other hand, you are writing a chapter book such as IVY AND BEAN, that's more like 7,800 words. DORY FANTASMAGORY, likewise, is in the 7k zone. There probably ARE some Chapter Books that are 10k words, but that's definitely on the high side.

I don't think there is a material difference between 38k and 38.4k and 38.5k. So ∼38k is fine, or 38.4k is fine. Whatever.

As for me? I don't put word count at all when I'm going out on submission. :-)

Here's a truth-bomb: nobody in publishing cares that much about word count, actually. Word-count obsession is pretty much entirely on the author's side. And I get it! So much of the querying process is opaque and totally subjective, and "word count" seems like an actual tangible thing that is definitely within the author's control.

So authors have built it up into THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, but hate to tell you, it's truly not.

Agents ask about word count because we want to know that your book is within normal parameters, but the window for what "normal parameters" mean is quite wide, actually. We just want the book to be the length of a book, an appropriate length to tell the story in the best way.

SOME agents might even have hard lines in the sand, where they simply won't even accept queries for mss over X-number of words. But it's not like this is some "industry standard" thing, those numbers they choose are really kind of arbitrary and just to make their lives easier.

Yes, it is true that you'll have a harder time getting agents to want to look if you have a word count that is way above the norm. Because the reality is, if somebody has a wildly overblown word count, we KNOW FROM THE JUMP that the book is going to need a lot of editing and be a pain in the ass, it's just not ready yet. Further, yes, we probably also think "OK, this person doesn't know how to self-edit, they don't know what the normal parameters are, probably they would need a lot of hand-holding. Oof." (But newsflash, OP - 400 words here or there for a novel is hardly what anyone would think is "wildly overblown!")

However. Just about any time I've made substantial cuts, I begin by doing line-by-line trimming. It gets me into the mindset of deciding what's less important to keep. It also requires me to read closely, so I refresh my memory of what exactly is in the story/essay, which helps me decide what needs to be in it. And sometimes, word-trimming alone can take me pretty far.

February 7th, 2026

Wordcount: 592