Meagan and Kirk dive into the Reddit community r/PubTips, unpacking both the helpful advice and the more problematic trends they’ve seen circulating in the subreddit.

They also explore some of the recurring debates that dominate r/PubTips, including the infamous word-count rules, comparative titles, and the murky territory of query personalization.

For the Hot Goss segment, Meagan and Kirk turn to the ongoing debate about editors. Must every writer hire a professional editor before querying, or is this just another form of gatekeeping?

Welcome to Bad Lit Friends. We’re glad you’re here, even if none of us know what we’re doing.

Bad Lit Friends was created and is hosted by Meagan Thompson-Mann and Kirk Rafferty. Our Producer is Rylan Rafferty.

Show email: badlitfriends@gmail.com

Bluesky: @badlitfriends.bsky.social‬

Threads: @badlitfriends

Instagram: @badlitfriends

Show notes:

You can find typical editorial rates at: https://www.the-efa.org/rates/

Typical word counts:

Short story: under 7,500 words

Novelette: 7,500 to 17,500 words

Novella: 17,500 to 40,000 words

Fantasy & Sci-Fi: 100,000 to 115,000 words

Mystery & Thriller - 80,000 to 100,000 words

Literary Fiction - 80,000 - 100,000 words

Romance - 80,000 to 100,000 words

Horror - 70,000 to 100,000 words

Memoir - 80,000 to 90,000 words

Young Adult - 55,000 to 80.000 words

Nonfiction - 50,000 to 80,000 words

Middle Grade - 20,000 to 55,000 words

(Source: https://reedsy.com/studio/resources/how-many-words-in-a-novel)