List of 50,000 Word Novels

Here is a partial list of well-known novels that contain roughly 50,000 words, which in turn is roughly 175 pages, and are thus comparable to the average size of a NaNoWriMo winner's novel.

See also List of published authors who write quickly for published authors who consistently write at the NaNoWriMo pace or faster.

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (46,333 words)
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (52,000 words)
• The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (50,776 words)
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (50,061 words)
• The Apostle Paul's Epistles from the Bible (43,293 words. 50,190 if you count Hebrews.)
• Lost Horizon by James Hilton
• Shattered by Dean Koontz
• Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
• Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter "E" by Ernest Vincent Wright
• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (56,695 words)
• The Giver by Lois Lowry (43,617 words)
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (46,591 words)
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles (56,787 words)
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (46,118 words)

Interestingly, Brave New World, the novel famed to be the one Chris Baty used to choose the 50,000-word goal in No Plot? No Problem!, is 64,575 words long.

The NaNoWriMo website previously had a topic on their website, which was wiped in the site relaunch. It is still up on the Wayback Machine. A thread on this topic has already been posted in the 2012 forums, referencing this article.

Books of smaller word counts were more common in the 1800s and early 1900s, but the trend for books became longer with the rise of modern printing techniques. Nowadays, adult novels generally tend to range from 80k to 120k depending on genre, however, young adult is often closer to the range of a Nanowrimo winner, with 60-70k being desirable. In addition, digital publishing is making novels and novelettes of any length more accessible.