Whilst I was being celebratory about 50 published books, one of my friends asked how many words that was, anyway.
Anybody wanna take a guess? (You can put it in the comments BEFORE you finish reading this post. I’ll put some spoiler space in, or something. :))
The thing is, I used to have a pretty good idea, actually. I’d kinda kept track up through the end of the publication of the Walker Papers, but that was…a while ago now. So I had to go add it up. And I did include the standalone novellas, ie, the ones that don’t anchor a full-length book, which is perhaps an itty bitty cheaty but I don’t really think so. And I’m ALSO including the book I’m writing Right Now, which will probably be published next month, ’cause I think that’s close enough to count.
I did not add in the independent short stories, which add up to a rounding error in the grand scheme of things, or the several unpublished novels that are still hoping to see the light of day (well, except the first one, which will never see the light of day, although I occasionally consider posting it to patreon for a hot minute so you can see what 19 year old me was writing). So it’s mostly just the published stuff, and it’s…
s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
p
a
c
e
…about 4.4 million words.
Which is quite a few, when you get right down to it. O.O
It occurred to me just now that somebody will ask for the breakdown, so here, roughly, is the wordcount breakdown for my 50 published books:
Walker Papers – 1.1 million
Old Races – 615k (negotiator trilogy alone, for those who care: 375k)
Guildmaster – 375
Dublin Driver – 350
Strongbox – 240
Worldwalker – 207
Virtue – 367 (307 without next month’s book)
Gladiators – 312
Totems – 80
stone’s throe – 60
fire – 100
roses – 66
wintergate – 17
magic & manners – 128
redeemer – 115
benedict – 75
atlantis – 105
boots – 30
measure – 30
america – 30
total: ~4.4 million
I have written far, far, FAR more than that; it took pretty near a million words to get the useable 615K out of the Old Races, and I must have written AT LEAST half a million trying to get the Guildmaster’s 312, plus of course all the books I’ve written that aren’t published (which add up to another…idk, 350-375), or the proposals or partials I’ve written but not completed, but…4.4 million published words is pretty cool, innit. :)