How many words makes a decent e-book read?

[dragonsreclaim]

Approx. how many words would a good Fantasy Fiction e-book be in general?

[Derinda]

I would think between 20-40 pages. I'm not sure how that breaks down into words but I do know that staring at a screen for long periods of time hurts my eyes so something shorter I prefer over something long. In that format anyway. Hope that helps you out.

Derinda Harp

[Anderdad]

Personally, I like long books. I find that the book must be long enough to tell the story with clear concise prose, but it must be short enough not to loose the reader in words and tangents that lead away from the story and the readers experience. This does not seem like an answer to the question but it does define the length of a book in a matter of speaking.

I have read books that were very short, less than 200 pages of print, that left me as a reader feeling content that the story was told as it should have been. I have also read books that are over 1000 pages in print that would leave most readers asking what happened to the story and how did it end.

I would say, to define the best lengthing of an ebook, that it would depend on the story and the author. Some stories would be well suited to 30 type pages of ebook, yet others would be left still on the introduction at 30 pages and would need a good many more pages to flesh out the story. Overall, as a reader I would recommend picking genre's you like and branching out to find new authors trying not to be stuck into the category of book size. You might find yourself enjoying , many new books you would not have considered otherwise.

[Janet L]

How did that saying go? I think it is "writing length should be just like a lady's skirt - short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the subject." Anyway, to me it is a matter of having it told well too. If an author cuts something down to make a certain length or inserts superfluous information just to try to make it longer you can usually tell. I guess if I had to choose between having it shorter or longer, I would usually prefer shorter. Stories should only be really long is there really is that much to tell and if it is a really interesting story.

[Randomgold]

Just write the story. Don't worry about how many pages or words it is. If you end up worrying about how long or short it is, you might call into the trap of rushing it or padding it out too much.

[Mys]

Below 70,000: Too short
70,000 – 79,999: Might be too short; probably all right
80,000 – 89,999: Totally cool
90,000 – 99,999: Generally safe
100,000 – 109,999: Might be too long; probably all right

Fantasy is a genre that is an exception to world count. There is normally world building that needs to take place and so your book might end up being in the 100k - 115k range. Normally the publisher will give a word count idea.

[Diving doc]

Below 70,000: Too short
70,000 – 79,999: Might be too short; probably all right
80,000 – 89,999: Totally cool
90,000 – 99,999: Generally safe
100,000 – 109,999: Might be too long; probably all right

Fantasy is a genre that is an exception to world count. There is normally world building that needs to take place and so your book might end up being in the 100k - 115k range. Normally the publisher will give a word count idea.

We've obviously used the same site as a reference, if you hadn't already posted it, I was going to go and find the same list