I just hit the 150,000 word mark with my novel. I haven’t gone in to start trimming yet, but I know that some sections will need to grow still and I’ve got some final scenes to write yet, so I’m guessing that the final product will end up being about 160,000 words.
I’ve actually been warned that this can be a problem for publishers, as all those words mean lots of extra pages which mean extra printing costs and higher price points. I’ve heard that the sweet spot these days is between 80 – 100,000 words for a book, but given the number of POV characters and plot points, that isn’t going to happen with this one.
I’ll be curious to find out if I’m actually shooting myself in the foot by writing something this large.