The average word count in a book is 60k to 100k words. Have you ever wondered how the average ebook page length or word count differs by book genre. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. I dont doubt that ill be able to fit it into the common page count window. Not only did i achieve my word count goal, i also ended up with a story whose characters, themes, and plot progression were deeper, chewier, and more memorable. In an earlier post i discussed broad issues relating to word count and book length but didnt actually explain how the length of a book is calculated. By using these three options to more accurately define your writing, the words per page calculator should provide a better estimate on how many words you need to write to fill a page. Aug 03, 2017 the number of pages also doesnt help much, as publishers use different typefaces, page sizes, font sizes, etc. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages.
The figure was found through looking at a number of books text stats, until brave new worlds 64,531 word count landed in the exact center of all books50% of books have fewer words and 50% of books have more words. You can show the word count, character count, and number of paragraphs in a document. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. Those of you who dont care about traditional publishing can leave the room now. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. But that contract is dependent upon the books genre. When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words. 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. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. 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.
So itll be off on occasion, but it still works well for the average book. Page size, margins, breaks and typeface vary greatly. If youre thinking bigger and wondering, for example, how many pages is 50,000 words, simply divide your target word count 50,000 by 500 since thats the average words per page. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. This is a true statement if your goal is to be published through traditional methods someday.
However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. Theres no point in obsessing about word choice if your story has whole scenes and. Estimate a small reduction for the linesperpage and the numberofpages values. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. Im just getting nervous the closer i get to the end. Readers looking for a good beachread in the mystery section will not likely gravitate towards a 1,000page book. Go play cricket or bake a souffle or save the whales. Page count is determined by the publisher, not the writer. See the article revision 911 for fiction picture books. Simply select your word print size, book genre and then enter your word count and press calculate number of pages. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words.
How to increase your novels word count noveldoctor. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. The truth is the number of words per page depends on a variety of factors such as the type of font, the font size, spacing elements, margin spacing, and paragraph length to name a few. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length klytics. Also, heres another list i may swipe and add in here. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Author eve tells me her book came in at 95,000 words. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. Word count signals to people what kind of book theyre dealing with. Weve typeset many books and therefore know how to calculate the number of words that fit on an average book page.
For instance, when a reader picks up a thriller, they have certain expectations of what. Having said all that, there are a number of conventions regarding word count. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isnt novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. 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. In north america, the standard used by editorial staff in figuring word count is 250 words per page, 10 words per line using a 12 pt. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. Because it allows me to check out length for published books in my genre. However, the true word count depends on the category in which youre writing. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. May 21, 2006 every word does count and careful consideration must be taken to ensure the pacing of the story and the illustratability is supported in a way that fits a picture book format.
Jun 15, 2006 im 55 years of age and writing a book which covers 7 years, from 2001 until 2007, of my life. So an 80,000 word manuscript would translate to approximately 350 pages. 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. To get an idea of what your book will look like you need to match the number of words per page on your word processing page to the finished printed page. My own word count per page fluctuates between 120150.
Feb 09, 2015 word counts of popular ya books as i started drafting my new wip a ya scifi thriller i began wondering what word count i should aim for. Move the pointer over the right side of the word count, then click the arrows to see character and paragraph count. How do you get a word count in a pages do apple community. This of course depends on what font size, line spacing and page margins you are using, but on average a word count of 250 words. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages.
I have tried searching the words word count plus the title of a novel, like the lovely bones, and all i get is the word count of essays and articles about the book in question, not for the book itself. Word count for book series the first book in each series below was the authors first. As a result, a 100k manuscript can size up very differently on a shelf. On the macro level in any type of edit, but especially a wordtrimming one, you always want to start with the big picture. Here 125% is the magnification at which the screen image of a page is being presented, 1 is the number of words that is selected, 4,007 is the total word count for the document, 69 are the pages partially visible on the screen, and 27 is the total page count for the document. Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. In the opposite direction, it can give a more accurate estimate of how many. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. Odd thomas 108,9 the face of fear 60,8 the bad place 146,472.
Im a retired ministry of defence police officer and was seconded to the united. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book. Assuming you use the standard conventions for manuscript format 1 margins, 25 doublespaced lines per page, and a 12 point nonproportional font like courier, then a good rule of thumb is one page equals 250 words for the mathimpaired, that means you multiply the number of. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. Search for word count totals in books word counters.
Jun 27, 2019 similarly, if your book is published and lands in a bookstore, you dont want to turn away prospective readers with a bizarrely small or large book spine. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size. I dont need one of those equations to help calculate word count based on the number of pages times whatever. Thats really hard to say, books are usually measured by word count and not page count. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. If youre writing a young adult fantasy novel, you should keep your word count below 90,000 words or 300 book pages.
To be picked up by a traditional publisher, my manuscript needs to fall in a similar wordcount window. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. James bland, while bookaminute classics sums up the collected works of virginia woolf as. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. Using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. If theres a business book you admire, why not count the pages, tot up the words on an average page, and see how long it is in total. Well, the answer is about one half page single spaced or one page double spaced. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. The standard is 32 pages and could be one line per page, therefore a total of 350600.
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. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. When you query a publisher, its customary to include your novels estimated word count. Word counts for childrens books i received a request awhile ago to do a post on word counts for different age categories in childrens lit. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference.
Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. Our book page count calculator helps you figure out how many pages your final book will contain based off of our your current word count. Theres no point in obsessing about word choice if your story has whole scenes and whole subplots you can axe. Im 55 years of age and writing a book which covers 7 years, from 2001 until 2007, of my life. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. This reduction will be very small, like maybe 12 lines less per page, and 510 pages less for the book. While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure.
For full titles, authors and descriptions of these books, see whats on my travel memoir bookshelf. Hi joan, a live word count of the entire document is reported at the bottom left of the document window. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. Word counts of popular ya books as i started drafting my new wip a ya scifi thriller i began wondering what word count i should aim for. The binding, font and paper size establish how many pages a published book will be. Go to that books page and scroll down to inside this book. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. The first book in each series below was the authors first. If your word count comes in too high or low, you could raise eyebrows with publishers.
Different books and publishers have different layouts for their pages. Aug 07, 2010 use the word count feature of the word processing program to track the word count. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Word count is the devil you have to love, or at the very least, respect. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page.
Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Genre in childrens writing meg rosoff the guardian. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Can be publisher specific, ranging from 3,000 to absolute max 5,000. For anyone who has taken the time to manually count the number of words on a page of paper, you know it\s both time consuming and frustrating. The ultimate measure of a storys size is its wordcount, however, so the literary geeks here at foster grant have put together a list of many of the most popular books and short stories in history for you. There is no average word count per page of a published novel. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. Fortunately, word counters can easily give you the information for. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. That will give you a good guide if you want to emulate it.
Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. For example, childrens books are going to have fewer words per page than a book meant for adult readers. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. Use our handy table to discover how many pages a given word count yields, single or double spaced, in times new roman or arial 12 point font.
Knowing the typical word counts of different types of childrens books will help you understand what goal you need to hit. Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Use the word count feature of the word processing program to track the word count. 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. Im leaving this in the list to show that word count isnt offered for every book. This is an art rather than a science but here are a few tips. Lets take a quick tour of copy fitting, casting off and related issues here. Word count matters because every book, regardless of genre, has an inherent contract with the reader. Estimate a small reduction for the linesper page and the numberofpages values. How many words are there on the average page of a novel. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the book, and for ya novels the average is 50,00070,000 words. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count.
This means that a 75,000 word novel would be around 300 pages. Picture books youll hear many people say the shorter the better. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. Sep 20, 2009 how to calculate book length in an earlier post i discussed broad issues relating to word count and book length but didnt actually explain how the length of a book is calculated. That being said you can usually assume about 250 words per a printed page. Word count, with a little help from amazon alexis grant.
So an 80,000word manuscript would translate to approximately 350 pages. Writing towards a word count might not work for everybody, but having a rough goal in mind certainly helps me when im sketching out chapters and undertaking my first draft. Im a retired ministry of defence police officer and was seconded to the united nation mission in kosovo on three occasions. The average fantasy novel should have between 50,000 and 150,000 words. Click view in the toolbar, then choose show word count. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. Still, if you have any feedback id love to hear it. 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. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. The average singlespaced document typed in 12point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending on.
Well just see how it goes when im finished, i guess. Average word count in a book book editing services. Jul 01, 2015 if theres a business book you admire, why not count the pages, tot up the words on an average page, and see how long it is in total. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. How many words per page are there in a typical novel. By the time i finished applying all these techniques, my story had transformed from a skinny novella to the optimum fighting weight of 100,000 words. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k.