Jess A
Archmage
I don't see where first novels have to be that short, at least in fantasy:
Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon - 688 pages, mass market paperback
Patrick Rothfuss, Name of the Wind - 736 pages mass market paperback
Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself - 531 pages (larger 9x6 paperback)
Scott Lynch, Lies of Locke Lamora - 736 pages, mass market paperback
JV Jones, The Baker's Boy - 560 pages, mass market paperback
Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule - 848 pages, mass market paperback
Brandon Sanderon, Elantris - 656 pages, mass market paperback
Mass market paperbacks have 300-335 words per page (those are figures I found from publishers and authors; it varies, of course, based on font, margins, and the like; the numbers will serve for our purposes).
Looks like the debuts fantasy novels, above, run maybe 159K to 248K. You can probably back off that a bit if the page counts include parts of the book that aren't the story, and to take into account blank pages or chapter beginnings and endings.
Still, it doesn't take much looking at the fantasy shelves, even if you're only looking at first novels, to see that they tend to be longer than in other genres.
Yes I thought as much. I sell books so I know the fantasy section very well. I have been reading the above posts and the numbers seem so short compared to what I am used to, even though there are indeed many good books which are quite short.
I think I will have a look at some of the publishers' guidelines, but I will ultimately write what serves my story.