Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. So a 200 page novel would be around 55,00060,000 words. If they typed 300 double spaced pages, is that enough to match their competition. How many words in 350 pages typed and double spaced. Popular novel word count the worlds largest word count.
That being said, this range is true for most books always do the research into comparable books and price your book accordingly. And obviously for an ereader it doesnt make much sense to talk about page numbers in any case. This is a true statement if your goal is to be published through traditional methods someday. Has the average word count for a published novel increased or decreased. 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 will yield around half a page single spaced and a whole page double spaced when set in either times new roman or arial at a 12 point font size. Many people read in spurts, at lunch time, or on the subway to work, readers. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. 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. For a manuscript, the answer is two pages if the word count per page is 250 and it is double spaced. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. How to increase your novels word count noveldoctor. Readers looking for a good beachread in the mystery section will not likely gravitate towards a 1,000 page book. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. 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.
But in general there are about 250300 words per page. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Most published books average closer to 300 words per page than 200. That said, the average word count for science fiction and fantasy novels. But if it helps, you can assume that a printed book has around 250300 words on a page. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. For instance, my novel runs about 101,000 words, which i would estimate at 101,000 300 336 pages. In rough terms, each page of a standardformat hardcover book has about 300350 words, and each word is five characters plus a space. Hey guys, i was wondering how many more double spaced pages of text in microsoft word i will have to write until it is enough for the average 200 page novel. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. You can use word to count how many words you have written in a document.
For a book in the 200300 page range, you are looking at 150250,000 words. Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. We will be using amazons estimation formula, which is that there are 300 350 words in a page they do take into account images as well, if your ebook has those. 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.
Theres no point in obsessing about word choice if your story has whole scenes and whole subplots you can axe. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. On the macro level in any type of edit, but especially a wordtrimming one, you always want to start with the big picture. The answer is one page single spaced or two pages double spaced. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. So itll be off on occasion, but it still works well for the average book. Document type average pages doc average pages gb average pages mb microsoft word 8 64,782 63 email 1. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. Now, depending on how youve setup your document your page count may vary slightly, but with arial or times new roman 12 point font and conventional margins you should see similar results. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. Aug 28, 2010 word count is the devil you have to love, or at the very least, respect.
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. Average word count per page creative writing forums. This format generally averages about 300 words per page, thus about 30,000 words per 100 pages. However, there are some general guidelines in this article that may help you determine the page count and chapter length needed for your book.
About how many words of that size are in your average 250 300 page book. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. According to scwbi society of childrens book writers and illustrators, early readers should be about 20 pages 5,000 words and chapter books should be from 4060 pages 1015,000 words. Hearthkeeper by cordelia kingsbridge, love, sex, and understanding the universe by harrie farrow, rubble an. Word count signals to people what kind of book theyre dealing with. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. Word count list how many words your text should have. For example, defending jacob has a word count of 122,475 and my utility comes up with 115,320. Most publishers these days will accept manuscripts in any clear, easily readable font, but there is a lingering belief. Readers looking for a good beachread in the mystery section will not likely gravitate towards a 1,000page book. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. The five books in that series to date average between 300 450,000 words each. That epic length is 34 times what youre setting your goal at. Discussion in software started by gatogato, jun 2, 2008.
Agents ask for the word count in a query letter for a reason. 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. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Word processing programs have a function that calculates the number automatically, but the results are not reliable in the publishing world. If a novel has a total of 80,000 words with 300 words per page, the number of manuscript pages is 267. We will be using amazons estimation formula, which is that there are 300350 words in a page they do take into account images as well, if your ebook has those. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count calculator we put at the bottom of this page. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Young adult counts are much less than that, usually in the 100125,000 word range.
How many characters of text letters are in an average book. 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. If a page has 4000 characters singlespaced, then it will take about 250 pages of text to equal one megabyte. Publishers word count requirements were set up back in the days of typewriters when courier was the only option. These lines from sorrows of werther were generated by to give an idea of what different word counts look like on the screen. You must provide an accurate word count per page or by document when you are submitting a literary project. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. So far, i have about 35,000 words typed for the book i plan to publish. In general there are probably about 250 to 300 words per page with a 12 point font. Our book page count calculator will help you figure out how many. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. Then you multiply that by 9, which is the working estimate of how many words are in a line. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. Id guesstimate that nonfiction books generally yes, this is very rough run perhaps 150450 pages, and at about 350 wd page that works out to something like 50150k words.
Say, for example, you want to write a spy novel, like a james bond book. Keep in mind, this is plain text we are talking about. Those of you who dont care about traditional publishing can leave the room now. I believe amazon starts with an estimate in the 325wpp range, but then maps numbers of page turns in ebooks to generate an approximate page count.
Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. It is crucial to keep it shorter, but make sure you highlight your. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Go to that books page and scroll down to inside this 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. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. 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. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. The daily word counts of 39 famous authors writers write.
May 20, 2008 how many computer pages equals a 200 page book. Read our guide to learn what your word count should be and our editors. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and. Calculate the number of pages using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. So lets say you want your book to match your competitors at 240 pages. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book. You get a copy of from russia with love, and then you count the number. Now im seeing a lot more mg books with up to 60,000 words, so i think the water has become a bit murky here. 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. If the average length is 300 pages, youre looking at a 75,000 word manuscript approximately one reason its harder for a new author to sell a 140,000 word manuscript is the size of the book. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication.
Therefore, word counts are still based on the standards of umpteen years ago. 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. Generally, there are 300 words per typed doublespaced page, using a 12 point font. This is an art rather than a science but here are a few tips. If you plan on printing digitally, keep in mind that printondemand printing presses will charge you based on your page count. Pages by word count 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. Traditionally, a book or novel is defined as being over 40,000 words. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. A 100 page test document i created with microsoft word took up 376k in plain text format. 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 books 50% of books have fewer words and 50% of books have more words. How to set the retail price of your book mill city press.
That will give you the number of words in a published paperback of a james bond book. Well explain two easy methods to calculate book page count. 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. While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure. 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. It all depends on the font type, font size, spacing, and formatting of the text. Estimate your page count book designer fiona raven.
When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Regardless of genre, there is no hard and fast rule about how many pages or words each chapter should contain or how many chapters should be in a book. Do this for several books in your niche to get a targeted range. I want to know because i am 66 of those into my first novel, and i set my goal at 350.
The answer is close to twothirds of a page single spaced, and around one and onethird of a page double spaced. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. With longer books, you can get a rough count by adding up the number of words on an average page and multiplying by the total number of pages. We have compiled a list of the daily word counts of famous authors and what they had to say about writing every day what is a word count. Word count for book series the first book in each series below was the authors first. Still, if you have any feedback id love to hear it. Then you multiply the number of lines by the number of pages in the book in this case, 300 pages. May 11, 2012 hi joan, a live word count of the entire document is reported at the bottom left of the document window. You should be writing in size 12 font on standard sized paper, not trying to emulate the look of a published book. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and novels and. Well, the answer is about one half page single spaced or one page double spaced.
It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250 300 words per page. Amazons initial estimate would run 101,000 325 310 pages. 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. To be picked up by a traditional publisher, my manuscript needs to fall in a similar wordcount window. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. How many words are there on the average page of a novel. 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. 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. Because dialogue requires paragraph breaks, there will be fewer words than if you have a few pages of full paragraphs instead of dialogue. Discover what size your book should be and if thats comparable to the standard book sizes in publishing. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. This will give you a rough estimate of the word count. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. How do you get a word count in a pages do apple community.
When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. The ensuing common types of files often result in an average number of pages per gigabyte and megabyte. Word count, with a little help from amazon alexis grant. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Im presently working on a novel and want to make certain my word count falls in line with what other authors produce. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book.
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. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and.
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. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. But chapter word count is something that you want to keep in. Because it allows me to check out length for published books in my genre. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Jan 18, 2010 this is awesome enough for me to get excited over. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words or characters are counted. It was 333 words which tends to be lower then the average picture book. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Lets take a quick tour of copy fitting, casting off and related issues here. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts.
Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. The more pages in your book, the more the cost of printing will be and the smaller your profit margin. Ultimately, you can expect there to be roughly 300 words per page in a book you write as a whole. So a 300 page manuscript will be roughly a 300 page book. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. You can easily calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. May 26, 2012 there is apparently an industry formula that will give you a rough estimate of how many words are in a published book.
Depending on your settings this may vary, but typically with a 12 point fontsize, times new roman or arial font and regular page margins your results should be similar. When you query a publisher, its customary to include your novels estimated word count. Dec 22, 2005 what is the generally accepted number of words per page for a published novel. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number 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. However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres, check out the breakdown in the article. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the speed at which the narrator talks. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres.
Just remember, with so much diversity in nonfiction, you have even less of. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. 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. This number was significantly different from the average we had seen for the estimated print length that had been given in the product details of each book s amazon sales page.