What's the shortest a novel can be before it's a novella or novelette ?

In publishing, the parameters for what word count is appropriate for a novella is more rigid than it is for novels. Novellas are 15,000 to 30,000 words. In many genres, there is zero market for novellas. Most are romance, erotic romance, or horror.

(Page counts are too variable, so publishers use word count only. Whatever your word processing software counts is fine. Round the count for a novel to the nearest 5000, for a novella to the closest 1000.)

Novels generally start at 60,000 words and the ideal word count varies by genre. (This information is a decade old and may have changed, but it's all I've got to offer; I follow what's current only in my own genres.)

YA Fiction: 50,000 - 80,000 words, rarely 90,000

Urban Fantasy: 80,000 - 90,000

Paranormal Romance: 80,000 - 90,000

Mysteries and Crime Fiction depends on subgenre:

Cozies 60,000 - 70,000;

All others 80,000 - 100,000Science fiction and Fantasy: 100,000

Epic Fantasy 120,000 - 130,000Mainstream fiction depends on subgenre:

Chick Lit 60,000 - 80,000;

Literary Fiction up to 120,000 but lately trends shorter;

Thrillers 90,000 - 100,000;

Historical Fiction to 140,000

If you write something that falls into No Man's Land, between 30,000 words and the lowest word count for your genre, you probably can't sell it no matter how good it is. There isn't a market unless you're an author so famous your name will sell anything you write.

Any work of fiction with a word count between 7,500 and 19,000 is generally considered a novelette. A novelette is longer than a short story, which usually has a word range of between 1,000 and 7,500 words, and flash fiction, which is usually under 1,000 words.

The word count and the page count is the number of words and pages a book has. Your values will probably all be zero. Hi.

50 000 words is the official length of a short novel.

There is no wordcount minimum. What separates a novel from a novella, novelette, or short story are other parameters, chiefly the winnowing of subplots, characters, and information extraneous to the central plot. As these are winnowed away, the story generally becomes shorter. You will not find any subplots at all in a short story, for example.