Just saw the latest findings (date 2013) by Smashwords ...
Quote:
The top 100 bestselling Smashwords books averaged 115,000 words. When we examined the word counts of books in other sales rank bands, we found the lower the word count, the lower the sales.
Now consider how authors can use this finding, combined with the knowledge of the power curve, to make smarter publishing decisions, and to avoid poor decisions. Often, we'll see an authors with a single full-length novel break the novel into chunks to create a series of novellas, or worse - they'll try to serialize it as dozens of short pieces. When you consider that readers overwhelmingly prefer longer works, and you consider that bestselling titles sell exponentially more copies, reach more readers and earn more money than the non-bestsellers, you can understand how some authors might be undermining their book's true potential.
Like every finding from this survey, you should use this information as one data point. There will always be exceptions to any rule. If your story deserves 50,000 words - nothing more and nothing less - because this is the length packs the biggest pleasure punch for readers, then by all means don't bloat your perfect story with extra words just because the data shows that longer books, on average, sell more. Do what's right for your story because that's what's right for your reader.
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src:
http://blog.smashwords.com/
I added bold/etc to the key parts in the finding that fit this thread. Just something to think about.