Average word count of book

That was the formula in the good old days when courier was the only typeface and typewriters were king. Nicholas sparks word count popular novel word count. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. The post lists a dizzying number of genres and a recommended word count range for each. Count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan.

Its a question often asked by aspiring authors wondering if their manuscript is several thousand words too long or short, but its also an intriguing one for readers to consider. I dont mind a publisher, agent or even a writer giving us his opinion of what word count makes a book, but to try to pass it off as definitive is more than arrogant. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. That makes them more expensive to print and a bigger investment. 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. Aug 05, 2019 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. Most memoirs need to be in the 70,000 to 100,000word range. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. I publish my books first on smashwords and then, after they pass vetting for the smashwords premium catalog, i publish them on amazon as well. A novelist of my acquaintance insists that the only way to estimate the number of words in a book is to multiply the number of pages by 250. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 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. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. We explain two easy methods to estimate your books page count. Every book is different and for any suggested word or page count you see, you are likely to encounter several popular fantasy books that are outside. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. With that in mind, ive tried to put together the definitive post on word count for fiction novels, young adult, middle grade, childrens books and even memoir. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212. 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. That will give you a good guide if you want to emulate it. The daily word counts of 19 famous writers word counter blog. For my travel memoir, should i query when i have a proposal and several sample chapters, like nonfiction, or wait until the manuscript is complete, like fiction.

Apr 11, 2015 nicholas sparks word count the notebook 38,520 message in a bottle 92,760 a walk to remember 49,311 the rescue 100,916 a bend in the road 93,766. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and. If you have 6 panels, stick to a maximum of 35 words per panel. The first book in each series below was the authors first. However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres, check out the breakdown in the article. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a word count guideline. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Authors often ask me about average word lengths for their manuscripts. Regarding the value of adhering to standard word counts, jackie bates, a former managing editor at aa publishing, adds. To save the time and effort of counting wordbyword, often a rule of thumb for the average number of words per line was. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to be.

What is the average number of actual words in comic books. Now, they dont offer word count or running time for books, but they do have a search api. Oftentimes, professional editing will cut down the unnecessary information so your memoir is the appropriate word count. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. There are a lot of elements that go into writing a story, like fleshing out characters, piecing together the plot, and crafting the perfect ending.

For debut books in this field the average word count tends to be 35k and it has therefore become the marker many industry professionals look for in queries from new writers. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. 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. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. Why barbara spear webster given a in memory of on murder she wrote. On the technical side of things, authors need to consider the number of words that will be in their completed manuscript. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. Also, millions of people, young and old alike, who have read these books have. Yes, if you are hugely successful with your first book, your publisher will want lots more books from you.

Like everything in writing, you may write a work of genius that smashes all the rules. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. If youre hoping to land a book deal with a traditional publisher, you dont want to give an editor a reason to turn your book away.

In the first book i tried to write my chapters were about 500 words long. May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Still unsure of how long to make your nonfiction book. Word count limits sometimes seem as though they are stifling artistic flow, but they are usually there for a reason, says freelance editor lisa howard. 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. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book category. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. 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. Apr 23, 2018 this post covers why word count matters for novels, the standard word count ranges for various genres, and the word counts of some famous novels. Id guess that the actual average number of words in a novel was somewhere close to 90,000 words.

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. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. Go out and find similar books to the one you want to write and figure out how many words are in the book. Having said all that, there are a number of conventions regarding word count. Longer books increase the number of pages that need to be printed.

Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. The old man and the sea was about 25 to 30,000 words. Jun 15, 2017 this is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. Audiences are used to a certain story length and page count. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. So, the average wordcount for a typical novel is anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words.

But, most nonfiction publishers want to be sold the concept, and therefore be able to discuss the direction of the project, before you write the book. It was 333 words which tends to be lower then the average picture book. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. What is a good way to get the word count of a kindle book. Recently i got asked this question, what is the ideal length word count wise for my first book. Books in this genre are also often gag gifts or are meant to be facetious. I would at least think 3 poems filling 24 pages is small, but doable. Id guesstimate that nonfiction books generally yes, this is very rough run perhaps 150450 pages, and at about 350 wdpage that works out to something like 50150k words. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count.

And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is the quality of your manuscript. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. If youve read our related article on how many words are in a novel youll recall that the typical word count for a novel according to is 80,000 to 109,000 words. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. But for print publishing, the physical cost of producing the book is an issue, and the market does generally know what it likes. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. Who or what part did barbara spear webster play on murder she wrote. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. Short novels in general hit around 40,000 to 60,000 words, but most publishers wont touch a novel. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel.

Would you consider a post on memoir guidelines, since memoir falls somewhere between fiction and nonfiction in many ways. For novels specifically in the young adult genre, the typical range is between 55,000 79,999 words. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. While theres no reliable statistic, heres an interesting post on word count from the blog of former agent colleen lindsay. Aug 15, 2019 average word count for this book genre. Do you want to publish a wide format bookwith inspiring quotes down the side margins. 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. Only if youre a major celebrity can you blow right through that word count and just keep going. Know your content, know your mainline pitch and some possible permutations, create a highlevel outline, write a compelling chapter and sell that. Even the individual books in the series have more words than average. Jul, 2017 i dont think there is a way and this is odd. 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.

Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average. An adult fiction book is most marketable in the suggested word count. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Depending on your genre, having too many or too little can not only hurt your book sales. 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. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. Picture story books for older children between the ages of 6 and 10 include more text with each picture. 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. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common.

Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Nicholas sparks word count the notebook 38,520 message in a bottle 92,760 a walk to remember 49,311 the rescue 100,916 a bend in the road 93,766. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. As you write more and more your word count will probably go up for each chapter because you become a stronger writer and are able to go more in depth in each chapter.

In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. I was scared that agents would reject my book simply because i had got the length wrong. Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. This is a lot harder because its not a specific field im receiving back i have to scrape the results and do some crazy parsing of the data. If you want to write a memoir, for example, look at four or five similar memoirs and determine their wordcount. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. How many words in a novel vary depending on genre, audience, and the story itself but in general, the average words in a novel is between 60,000 and 90,000 words for most genres. Here is everything writers need to know about novel word counts. 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 novels and books is something i dont think about too often until i travel to a writers conference, and then someone asks a simple, innocent question. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to. If youre new to selfpublishing on amazon and wondering, just how much should i write for my kindle book. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a wordcount guideline. 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. There is a sweet spot when it comes to word count, and its based on a books genre and target audience. For that group, a novel is more than 40k words, a novella is 17. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication.

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 book itself, say like beowolf. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted. But, he also mentions that the wizard of oz was 40,000 words.