The advent of very inexpensive self publishing has allowed authors to easily and inexpensively create a literary work that meets all of the conventional criteria that a text must meet to be called a novel. Some very long examples have generated considerable attention from the mass media, such as the 17-million-word Marienbad My Love by Mark Leach and the 13-million-word The Blah Story by Nigel Tomm. The Story of the Vivian Girls, a nine-million-word novel by outsider artist Henry Darger has never been published but continues to generate considerable attention from art critics and the media.
Novel cycles are essentially multivolume of books that share a fictional universe yet could be read independently. In some cases, authors and publishers might disagree on how to publish literary works and break up a novel into a series and vice versa. Word counts can easily climb into the millions. Noteworthy examples include the Wheel of Time fantasy series with more than 4 million words written by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (This is a single narrative, but unfinished yet.); A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell, a series of 12 novels published from 1951 to 1975 and topping out at over 1 million words; and Perry Rhodan, a German series of novels claiming over 150 million words in more than 2,300 parts.
High word counts can be found in many works of fan fiction, including Cevn McGuire’s Trial by Tenderness at about two million words.
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