However, the drop in the overall average length of bestsellers over the last 7 years points to a marked. Search for word count totals in books word counters. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. Anything in this word count wont scare off any agent anywhere. On average, when writing a memoir should not exceed 90,000 words and that is a stretch when it comes to memoir word count. The binding, font and paper size establish how many pages a published book will be. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. Oct 18, 2017 but chapter word count is something that you want to keep in mind for future edits. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. We recommend memoirs be between 45,000 to 80,000 words in order to maintain intrigue and reduce intimidation. For example, childrens books are going to have fewer words per page than a book meant for adult readers. 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. Estimate your page count book designer fiona raven.
On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. Just to keep in mind, the average one spaced page usually contains about 3000 characters or 500 words. Depending on the text formatting, a page word count may include from 200 large print up to 600 words academic 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. Count characters and words with the anycount tool for a precise estimate and get every single cent youve earned. 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. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book.
At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. 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. Word processing programs have a function that calculates the number automatically, but the results are not reliable in the publishing world. Word count is 500 or less for the lower levels and up to 2000 for higher. This is because these programs only count actual words, but publishers. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page.
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. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. 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. This is because printers print on large sheets of paper and fold it. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. Estimates vary based on different kindle devices available, but the above settings translate into approximately 250300 words per page on average. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts.
First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Nicholas sparks word count popular novel word count.
This will give you a rough estimate of the word count. So, with all of this in mind, is there actually an average word count you should aim for. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. On average, how long is a childrens book for children. This is a 100% safe range for literary, mainstream, womens, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller and horror. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. 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. 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. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading.
It depends on font size, language, page size, line spacing and other factors. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature. Hence, a manuscript not a published book of 200 pages is figured at 250 wpp x 200 pages 50,000 words. How many words per page are there in a typical novel. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. You must provide an accurate word count per page or by document when you are submitting a literary project. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away.
I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. But, he also mentions that the wizard of oz was 40,000 words. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average.
Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. Sep 20, 2019 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. 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. In 2017, the downward trend has continued, with an average book length of 273 pages. Most memoirs need to be in the 70,000 to 100,000word 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. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count calculator we put at the bottom of this page. However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres, check out the breakdown in the article. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience.
The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. This isnt to say that long books are no longer succeeding. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. As a result, a 100k manuscript can size up very differently on a shelf. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. If you want to get a target for your nonfiction book, the best thing may be to look at a dozen or so bestselling books in the genreniche youre aiming at and see what their word counts are.
Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. Do you want to publish a wide format bookwith inspiring quotes down the side margins. Page count is determined by the publisher, not the writer. 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. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter.
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. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. The old man and the sea was about 25 to 30,000 words. This is an art rather than a science but here are a few tips. In 2016s list, ron chernows 816page alexander hamilton managed to crack the top spot. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. Jun 15, 2017 this is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books.
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. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. Only if youre a major celebrity can you blow right through that word count and just keep going. I once entered a competition that set a maximum word limit of 80,000 for young adult novels and 100,000 for adult novels. 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. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me. You can write as short or as extended a chapter as you want, with as many scenes in each that you want.
Between 80,000 and 89,999 words is a good range you should be aiming for. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to be. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. A brief survey of various editions indicated a page count of between 214.