Determine what genre your novel is to find out approximately how many words it should contain. According to Bookends LLC, a leading literary agency, the following word counts are preferred in the industry. Romance novels should be between 80,000 and 100,000 words. Fantasy novels should be between 85,000 and 125,000 words. Young adult novels should be about 50,000 to 75,000 words.
Count your finished novel's pages, or use your word processor to determine the number of pages. Each page should have approximately 25 lines. The publishing industry calculates word count differently than your word processor, and by calculating it the same way, you can include a more accurate count in your queries. While 25 lines is 'the norm,' a few more or a few less is OK. The 25 line-standard is used as an estimation during the publishing process.
Multiply the number of pages by 250, the expected number of words per page. By doing this, you'll come up with a word count that can be used in your agent queries.
Round your word count to the nearest thousand. For instance, a novel with 90,150 words can be called a 90,000-word novel.