Does word count matter?

[Finne]

I'm expanding a novel at the moment that I plan to self-publish at some point during the coming year. From doing some internet searches, I can tell there's been a lot of debate over how long a novel is supposed to be, and it's frustrating for me because everyone seems to say something different.

I definitely want this to be a novel, not a novella or novelette, because I've always wanted to write one ever since I was little. But since I'm not going the traditional route for this particular book, does word count really matter? If I'm aiming to write 50,000 words and end up with 40,000 instead, does this mean I haven't written a novel?

[pls]

Word count does matter when you intend to submit your work to an agent, who may eschew a 100,000 YA manuscript that should be between 50K-80K. But if you intend to self-publish, word count doesn't really matter unless you're trying to market a novella as a novel. 50K is a good word count to shoot for when writing a novel (Nanowrimo rules, in fact, call for 50K as the minimum to "win" the event.).