There is always an argument among authors about how many words are entitled to be called a novel. Back before self-publishing, most traditional publishers insisted on between 150,000 and 250,000 words and I have noticed that traditionally published books are getting tediously long.
While it is what is expected of War and Peace, I have found myself flitting through pages and muttering Oh, for God's sake get on with it!
I do not want endless pages of description, or irrelevant snippets from a character's past which have nothing whatever to do with the story. When I write, there will be descriptions, but not two or three pages of them and I won't go into anything which is not relevant to the story being told. I leave out the bits which I would skip over anyway.
My shortest book is Mirielle at 34,000 words. I would call it a novella. My longest is The Romany Princess at 80,000 words. Most of my books are between 50,000 and 60,000 words; the estimated number of pages on the Amazon website is misleading as they are, in fact, quite a bit longer and that estimate seems to change if I edit and re-upload at all, so it is best not to pay too much attention to it.
Off now, to take the baby bears out.
