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At some point in publishing, whether print or digital, there is a word processing document, and the word count of the submitted document is automatically available. When I'm creating an e-book for the Library here, if it is of an unusual length (short or long) I often note the word count. Although I see I have posted The Shriek, the 1923 burlesque of E M Hull's 1921 novel The Sheik without noting that is is 23,600 words, according to the bottom left hand corner of Office Word. I did note on the books by Nathanael West their unusual brevity when I uploaded them.
Word count has been used in the publishing trade for years, if not centuries. Authors of magazine fiction were paid by word count. It's no hassle, it's comparable across formats and page sizes, lets go with it...
Except, in the print world, as Private Eye Magazine's cynical reviewer notes, there are books with wide margins, thick paper, and substantial "leading" (wider spacing between lines) to make a more saleable package, and naturally the publisher is not going to damage itself by proudly bragging on the back cover blurb that it is only 38,000 words.
(197 words not counting this line!)
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