Typical word count of a book

For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. I once entered a competition that set a maximum word limit of 80,000 for young adult novels and 100,000 for adult novels. Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. Nonfiction books also vary tremendously in word count. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically. As a general rule of thumb, a novel falls somewhere between word count ranges of 50,000 words and 100,000 words. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. This is due to the audience youre reaching preferring that length. A single novel can be longer, but once the length is above 110,000 words publishers may look at cutting it back, unless it is a particular kind of book books over the 110k word count are usually considered epics.

Typically books of poems with 1 page per poem are around 2530 pages long, however i have seen books that are longer than 50 poems. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. Before our book page count calculator, you had to dig around through multiple sources to figure out how many words per page for your exact font size and then do the math. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. So, the average wordcount for a typical novel is anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words. Some genres like science fiction can be much longer and spend 1,000s of words on worldbuilding. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book.

The word count to aim for with this type of book is usually between 500 and 600 words. An approximate word count round numbers based on what your wp tells you enables them to estimate costs and other factors involved in printing a book. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. Click librarian or teacher and then search for books like yours click on the titles to get all kinds of info about them, including wordcount. However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres, check out the breakdown in the article. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Novelist jane smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel. If the word count of twilight is disregarded, the average. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone is about 77,500 words total. Rowlings recordbreaking series began with two titles on the high end of that spectrum and finished with five that left the guidelines in the dust. For example, childrens books are going to have fewer words per page than a book meant for adult readers.

Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. Most middle grade novels are between 40,000 and 69,000 words long. Picture story books for older children between the ages of 6 and 10 include more text with each picture. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. We explain two easy methods to estimate your book s page count. Discover the average number of words on a page by counting the number of words on three randomly picked full pages distributed throughout the book. Now that weve covered how many words are in a novel, its time to break it down even further by finding out the ideal number of chapters in a novel and how many words are used in a typical chapter depending on the writing genre, word count in book chapters can vary considerably. At an average reading rate of 125 words per minute, thats about 145 hours of reading. The word count for your book in microsoft word will be located in the bottom left corner next to the page number.

Take a typical 250 word per page, 15 pages of good content contains around 3,750 words. The binding, font and paper size establish how many pages a published book will be. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job.

Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. The average mean word count was about 53,000 words. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. The average word count in a book is between 60,000 and 100,000 words. If youre writing your first novel, the general rule of thumb for novel writing is a word count in the 80,000 to 100,000 range. Id guess that the actual average number of words in a novel was. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the.

This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books.

As previously discussed, there are different requirements for both fiction and nonfiction genres. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average words perline count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted. All we have to do is use the wp tool that shows word count. The author selling the most copies was a scholastic author published only in softcover hello, scholastic school market.

This involves the manuscript being double spaced, with 12 pt tnr, arial, verdana or other easy to read font all throughout the manuscr. Publishers want to know the overall length of your book. Books with much shorter sections become bestsellers all the time. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. I asked agents elizabeth pomada and michael larsen of larsen pomada literary agency to add their thoughts to the subject. The author selling the most copies was a scholastic author published only in softcover hello, scholastic school. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as the definitive word count you must reach in your book. If you self pub, places such as amazon will print a book as low as 24 pages, so if your poetry is an epic poem it can be almost 1. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word.

Does this mean that every chapter must end up somewhere in this range. Ive seen short story anthologies that are in the range of novella length all the way up to more than 150k words. Oct 03, 2017 word count varied from 5,000 words to 40,000 words, with an average mean of 17,200 and a median word count of 8,500. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Word counts of famous book series harry potter by jk rowling. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. Between 80,000 and 89,999 words is a good range you should be aiming for. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. Science fiction and fantasy novels typically have a word count between 90,000 to 125,000 words. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. The sweet spot, according to donald maas, is 100,000 to 115,000 words.

Perkins agency in new york says its much easier to market a firsttime novelists book if the word count falls between 80,000 and 100,000 words, or roughly 300 doublespaced, typed pagesthe average novel length. From these numbers, we can establish some guidelines. This article on writers digest also suggests a length of around 100115,000, and takes a good look at desirable word count ranges for different genres. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. The sorcerers stone 77,325 words the chamber of secrets 84,799 words the prisoner of azkaban 106,821 words. Another recommendation by tom corsonknowles from tck publishing. As you can see, a smaller trim size will produce more pages for the same word count, and a larger trim size will produce less. As a result, a 100k manuscript can size up very differently on a shelf. Stephen king word count 112263 274,672 bag of bones 203,3 black house 252,270 blockade billy 15,917 carrie 60,718 cell 121,931 christine 193,602 cujo 121,150 cycle of the werewolf 15,955 desperation 195,011 doctor sleep.

Bearing in mind if you opt for a shorter word count, you might not be able to print o. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Upper middle grade can hit in the 50k word count range possibly longer, if its something really special. Only if youre a major celebrity can you blow right through that word count and just keep going.

Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. May 15, 2011 well, while the accelerated reader program is lame in a lot of ways, this is a very handy tool. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. Stine writes over hundreds of books in a series, so a low word count is actually acceptable. Some will tell you 2,500 words is the average, while others will say that 3,000 to 5,000 word chapters are more likely to be the norm. Personally, i recommend at least 10,000 words for nonfiction, unless you can do it justice in less. Compressing a very exciting scene so you can meet your chapter word count target is also not going to do you any favors. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words.

With fun, lighthearted, simple middle grade youll want to stay around the 20k30k word count range. Novelty books include popups, puzzles, pulltabs and other interactive features. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average. Publishers and agents are typically inundated with manuscript submissions from authors seeking publication. During the introductory month of the new system, the conversion of kenpc into the actual number of words in the book actual word count showed significant differences from one book to the other. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. I remember reading some westerns in high school and, if i. Anything over 110,000 words is considered too long for a fiction novel. How to put together a poetry manuscript for publication. If there is an average, 60,000 words to 80,000 words are probably the sweet spot. Apr 18, 2020 this article how to write a bestselling business book has a good, concise, logical answer on the ideal length today for a business book less than 100 pages. Aug 05, 2019 certain publishers of very specific genres like love inspired, harlequin will require a set word count or range, but my first bit of advice is to plot out a strong, solid story using timetested structure, write the book with careful and expert crafting learn to be a great wordsmith and develop your unique voice, and ignore the constraints. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7.

The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. Young adult fiction allows for a lot of flexibility in word count. This reduction will be very small, like maybe 12 lines less per page, and 510 pages less for the book. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Jan 08, 2018 wondering how many word pages equal a book page. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. Most memoirs need to be in the 70,000 to 100,000 word range.

How many words per page are there in a typical novel. Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is the quality of your manuscript. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. In the opposite direction, it can give a more accurate estimate of how many pages you have created if you only know the word count.

Never pad your manuscript just to meet a word count guideline. Search for word count totals in books word counters. While anything over 40,000 words can fall into the novel category, 50,000 is considered the minimum novel length. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. Well, if you use standard modern manuscript formatting, about 2530,000 words total are in 100 manuscript pages. If the book offers more complicated instructions such as for creating an origami bird or a fashionable paper doll, the word count can extend as high as 1,500 words. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This article suggests that essentially, it should be as long as it needs to be, meaning dont look at the word count, just get the story out then edit. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. Writing middle grade a look at the numbers hannah holt.

Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. The word count at big five publishers had a slightly narrower range. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. While the idea of chapters in the 3,000 to 5,000word range is a good guideline when roughing out your books structure, it isnt a rule, and the story itself should be the primary deciding factor.

The authors had sold between 10 copies and 2 million copies of their chapter books. May 14, 2018 readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. The revelation another book thats pretty thin, and its part of a series of over fifty books, and each book was written in under a month anyway. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful.

If youre writing an adult fantasy novel or an epic fantasy novel like game of thrones, your word count can skew higher at 90,000 200,000 words. In contrast, word count is finite and usually i can calculate book length with about 99% accuracy in part because also included in any calculation is a count of figures, tables, etc. This is a 100% safe range for literary, mainstream, womens. I found some disagreement about the ideal length of mystery novels. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Short and punchy books are 40,000 to 60,000 words, but many nonfiction books are lengthy. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common.

Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Average word count in a book book editing services. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. Famous book series and novel word counts count words and. Once you have a vision for your book small, standard, or wide formatyou can move on to the second step in deciding how many words you should write. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. Jun 07, 2017 when talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k.

Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. In all cases, you can find an author who has successfully pushed the envelope one way or another. This is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. But chapter word count is something that you want to keep in. Your chapter length has to work well with the overall word count of the book short chapters create an even distribution of both content and action. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. Most memoirs need to be in the 70,000 to 100,000word range. Word count varied from 5,000 words to 40,000 words, with an average mean of 17,200 and a median word count of 8,500. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. To find pretty much any kids ya word count, you can use the ar bookfinder. Page count is determined by the publisher, not the writer. In some cases, these books will have no words at all, such as for the very small child who likes to feel the fluffy cotton tail of a bunny or push the squeaker for a duck quack.