Average word count per book

We recommend memoirs be between 45,000 to 80,000 words in order to maintain intrigue and reduce intimidation. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is the quality of your manuscript. The sorcerers stone 77,325 words the chamber of secrets 84,799 words the prisoner of azkaban 106,821 words. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. 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. As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. Jan 08, 2018 now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Word count signals to people what kind of book theyre dealing with. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts.

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. Can be publisher specific, ranging from 3,000 to absolute max 5,000. With all these things in mind, we can come back and say that many literate adults read at an average reading pace of around 200 to 250 words per minute. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a word count guideline. Realize it over the maximum word count for erotic, science fictionfantasy genre. On average, one doublespaced page has 250300 words. Once you have a vision for your booksmall, standard, or wide formatyou can move on to the second step in deciding how many words you should write. Depending on your genre, having too many or too little can not only hurt your book sales, but also cause fewer 5star.

Word counts of famous book series harry potter by jk rowling. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. I highly doubt all the great writers of yore set out to write their classics with a word count in mind, or freaked out if their book finished at only 45,000 words or was as high as 500,000 words. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. Some speed reading programs display text one word at a time, challenging the reader to immediately recognize the word and associate it with the previous words to develop comprehension. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. At an average reading rate of 125 words per minute, thats about 145 hours of reading. So should i stay with this word count, or try to bring the word count down. Im not sure if im pushing the word count over, been trying cut back the word count. And as you can see, it varies, depending on the story.

This reduction will be very small, like maybe 12 lines less per page, and 510 pages less for the 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. 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. Search for word count totals in books word counters. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. I once entered a competition that set a maximum word limit of 80,000 for young adult novels and 100,000 for adult novels. On average, when writing a memoir should not exceed 90,000 words and that is a stretch when it comes to memoir 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. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Word processing programs have a function that calculates the number automatically, but the results are not reliable in the publishing world. You must provide an accurate word count per page or by document when you are submitting a literary project. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count.

In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. Readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. Smashwords gives a precise word count for each and every b. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot.

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. 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. What is a good way to get the word count of a kindle book. But, he also mentions that the wizard of oz was 40,000 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. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has 17 chapters with titles, and about 4560 words per chapter. 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. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. The average mean word count was about 53,000 words. Each genre and subgenre has its own word count range. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff.

Estimate a small reduction for the lines per page and the numberofpages values. When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. The average word count for a novel is between 70,000 words and 120,000 words. 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.

Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively. Many of these books are written in rhyme or in a simple singsong meter that is catchy and fun. 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 then. Most middle grade novels are between 40,000 and 69,000 words long. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. All we have to do is use the wp tool that shows word count. The old man and the sea was about 25 to 30,000 words. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction.

The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if. Heres how pavita singh of pavedita in palo alto, california, breaks down costs for editing services based on word count and type of editing. The books are a bit longer, up to about 70,000 words max with an average around 50,000. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a wordcount guideline. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words.

Books that can be read by many ages are called crossover books. Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page.

How many words per page are there in a typical novel. Twilight has 24 titled chapters, or 26 if you count the preface and epilogue, and about 4580 words per chapter. If the word count of twilight is disregarded, the average becomes around 88,625. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. For example, childrens books are going to have fewer words per page than a book meant for adult readers. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book.

For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. 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. That said, the average word count for science fiction and fantasy novels.

This 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. Its no longer necessary to estimate according to the 250wordsperpage formula. Heres how pavita singh of pavedita in palo alto, california, breaks down costs for editing services based on word count and type of editing copy editing or. Publishers want to know the overall length of your book. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. The word count at big five publishers had a slightly narrower range. 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. The one main advantage this genre has over every other is that. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. If you have 6 panels, stick to a maximum of 35 words per panel. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. This is because these programs only count actual words, but publishers.

It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. Your best bet is to figure out what books yours is comparable to, then sit down and count the words on 23 typical pages. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. Do check your comparable titlesrecent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. What is the average number of actual words in comic books or. The average singlespaced document typed in 12point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending on. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad.

Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a 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. If youre a good writer, your book will be as long or as short as the storyline dictates. Some will tell you 2,500 words is the average, while others will say that 3,000 to 5,000 word chapters are more likely to be the norm. When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words.

Famous book series and novel word counts count words and. Sometimes this subcatgory is referred to as tween especially when the themes of the book explicitly explore preteen related issues. Heres how 90,000 words which is 360 pages at 250 words per. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876. Less than 70,000 unless fantasy scifi supernatural, which can be longer, max 90,000. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. May 14, 2018 readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. Aug 09, 2017 some freelance editors charge by the word. When i harry bingham wrote my first novel, i started to worry that i was off the mark. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Before you decide your average chapter length, its a good idea to think. In any case, to see how authors use this tactic to set their pacing, we also mapped out the word count of every chapter in four famous books. 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.

Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. 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. Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words. Writing middle grade a look at the numbers hannah holt. Oct 18, 2017 the average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. Pages by paperback uses an industry standard formula for english language publishing of taking the average number of words per page and multiplying it by the average number of characters per word five including a space, for six total, the product of which is then used to divide against the total character count of the project. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing.

So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. Novelist jane smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book.