Average word count for book

This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the.

Obviously, my point is not that you should submit a first book of anywhere near 200,000 words. 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. Sep 20, 2019 the total word and page count will vary from book to book and is dependent on your writing and overall book formatting average time to write this book. The average mean word count was about 73,000 words.

For you dear authors, the only time you should take note about the word count is probably when you are hiring someone for editing and formatting because the more word count you have, the more the service is going to cost you. If youre writing a young adult fantasy novel, you should keep your word count below 90,000 words or 300 book pages. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a wordcount guideline.

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. Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or. My middle grade novel is complete at 250,000 words, and have five sequels planned which will each be approximately the same length. Yes, having a book that is overly short or overly long for its genre will incrementally decrease your odds of finding traditional publication. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. 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. There are a few book word count guidelines for each genre, but these arent hard. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. 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. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. 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.

The following are average wordcount ranges by genre. Im just saying that some things are more important than word counts. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words.

Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. 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. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. 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. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to be. May 14, 2018 readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. The average word count for a novel is between 70,000 words and 120,000 words.

Your best bet is to figure out what books yours is comparable to, then sit down and count the words on 23 typical pages. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. 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. When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. 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.

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. I once entered a competition that set a maximum word limit of 80,000 for young adult novels and 100,000 for adult novels. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. 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. At an average reading rate of 125 words per minute, thats about 145 hours of reading. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is the quality of your manuscript. Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. That was the formula in the good old days when courier. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count.

The sorcerers stone 77,325 words the chamber of secrets 84,799 words the prisoner of azkaban 106,821 words. Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. 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. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. For nonfiction books, word count guidelines are more flexible, sometimes even double the word counts listed here. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. Jan 08, 2018 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. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. 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. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words.

The word counts of some famous novels for comparison. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count.

I know that this is considered long but i really cant cut anything, it is all integral to the story. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. This reduction will be very small, like maybe 12 lines less per page, and 510 pages less for the book. 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. That doesnt mean you can submit a manuscript twice the length a publisher. 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. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. If you have 6 panels, stick to a maximum of 35 words per panel. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. To save the time and effort of counting wordbyword, often a rule of thumb for the average number of words per line was used, such as 10 words per.

When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. The stories should be easy to follow and have an average word count of 1,000 to 10,000 words, a range similar to an adult short story. 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. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsperline 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. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says.

In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. In the first book i tried to write my chapters were about 500 words long. Readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. Apr 23, 2018 standard word count ranges for various genres. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. The golden compass by philip pullman 112,815 words, prisoner of azkaban by jk rowling 106,821 words, and enders game by orson scott card 100,609 words. Nevertheless, you would be wise to come close to these suggested manuscript lengths. Famous book series and novel word counts count words and. Nicholas sparks word count popular novel word count. According to this cool site, the one minute manager, talked about i. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book.

A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. 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. Between the ages of four and eight, children have picture books read to them and also begin to read themselves. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to. 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. 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. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. 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. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf.

First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. Apr 11, 2015 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. Jun 27, 2019 that said, the average word count for science fiction and fantasy novels generally lies between 100,000 and 115,000. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. This is due to the audience youre reaching preferring that length. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. 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 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 itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. The first book in each series below was the authors first. Novelist jane smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel. Now, this doesnt mean that you have to compromise your manuscript and make it homogeneous, however by trying to tick a few boxes it might.

Word counts of famous book series harry potter by jk rowling. 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. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. What is the average number of actual words in comic books or. Writing for young adults a look at the numbers hannah holt. Many of these books are written in rhyme or in a simple singsong meter that is catchy and fun. What is the average number of actual words in comic books. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words.