I found some disagreement about the ideal length of mystery novels. Although hir book was just under 300 pages, which is more of an industry standard, it seems. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Multiply up by the number of pages and get to a rough word count. But if youre curious to see how your manuscript measures up to to the standard word count expectations for your genre, the following is a summary of an informative article by chuck sambuchino called word count. Heres our word count guide for 18 different book genres.
This is due to the audience youre reaching preferring that length. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. 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. However sometimes, like today, the reverse happens.
Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Up to 150,000 is fine, but check youre not waffling. Publisher word count for magazine writing word counter blog. I have even seen books with chapters that were all the same length that had both problems. If you plan to turn your ebook into a print book at some point, you might want to consider length. Its a perennial question asked by writers of all genres. 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. Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature. Some books have chapters that are too short, they dont expand the idea enough for you to understand. Your best bet is to go to a good childrens bookstore and look at books like your own in terms of target audience. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. All book publishers and book designers have a standard they go by to estimate page length.
Standard nonfiction business, political science, psychology, history, etc. If you search the internet for novel length, you will mostly receive the standard. Aug 05, 2019 coyne uses the nanowrimo wordcount length of 50,000 words for his examples, calling 50,000 words a good foundation to build upon. These numbers are pulled from the original languages using logos bible softwareyou can see how i did it below. None of them fit the industry standard in word count. An ebook could be 3,000 words or as long as a full length book. It makes quite a difference whether you want to publish a childrens picture book, a 50recipe smoothie book, a science fiction novel or a technical encyclopedia. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. 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. For a book about the deeper rhythms of love, these responses please me to no end. 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.
They can be up to 180,000 words, or even over 200,000, but the novel must be wonderful and must fully justify its word count. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. 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. 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. 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. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing.
Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. And some books are simply shorter, following basic reading trends. 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. The standard business book length this is around 5060,000 words although there are some who would say it should be more and a few that it should be less. This looks like a simple question, but you have to look at several factors before you can determine optimum length. Be sure to check out chucks full article for some of the reasoning behind these wordcount targets, and why youll be hurting your chances of getting an agent or book deal if you stray from the standard. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book. Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans. King, and lee child run well over 90k, sometimes going as high as 120k. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. There is a simple reason that may not seem obvious at first, but it makes a lot of sense once its pointed out. No more than 90,000 words seems to be the editors mantra these days. Jan 08, 2018 while many agents say they wont reject a book solely based on length, many also say they take word count into consideration.
When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. Now, they dont offer word count or running time for books, but they do have a search api. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. In other words, anything up to 120,000 words, no problem. The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of pages. Nonfiction picture book 3,000 words max, but closer to 1,000 to 2,000 words early reader 1,500 words is the max chapter book this varies widely, depending on grade and reader level, usually starting at 4,000 words and 15,000 words max. Picture story books for older children between the ages of 6 and 10 include more text with each picture. To view word count in pages on a mac, go to the toolbar and click view show word count. Once you have a vision for your book small, standard, or wide formatyou can move on to the second step in deciding how many words you should write. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books.
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. Estimate your page count book designer fiona raven. With digital books as well as print books available today, the length of manuscripts has begun to vary considerably. However, book length varies widely between genres, among authors, and based on the content of the book. Below is the reason why we decided it was important to include a publisher word count in the details section for those who will be submitting their writing for publication. Go to a bookstore and support your fellow authors by purchasing these books, or check them out of the library. More recently, though, another colleague, who also wrote a noteworthy book, dismissed this worry of mine about book length as groundless. This post was written in 2008, and revised in 2010.
Draft your novel in standard format from the start. Customers are used to the 32 page lengtheven if they cant tell you an exact count of pagesand it seems a good value. Apr 05, 2015 generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count. 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. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. We explain two easy methods to estimate your book s page count. If youre working on a novellength book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least but its better to aim for 90,000. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Aug 02, 2008 while its possible to go over or under the 32pages, it is often best to keep to this standard. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. A young adult novel will run between 20,000 and 40,000 words. The best way to find out how many pages will be in your book is to use this calculation method.
If youre writing a young adult fantasy novel, you should keep your word count below 90,000 words or 300 book pages. May 11, 2009 word count and book length one of my biggest problems as a publisher is having authors deliver more than was agreed to. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count. Ive put together word counts for every book of the bible. The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250.
A books word count does matter and if you get it wrong, this can impact. If youre using open office, the word count is visible in the bottom left corner. Novels intended for the adult market will be longer than those targeted at children and young adults. 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. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace. In fact, the majority of printed books are turned into ebooks. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. Here is everything writers need to know about novel word counts. If your story justifies the length, you neednt worry if you get up to 150,000. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan.
The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. If you analyse the contents of a typical bookshelf in an academic library, you will notice that many of the books are between 272 and 320 pages in length. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. You should be aware that word count standards differ vastly by genre. Editors have very specific guidelines for the types of stories they publish and those types all have specific word count ranges. Customers are used to the 32 page length even if they cant tell you an exact count. Editor dana isaacson discusses desirable word counts for different genres. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. Most of the time, an overly long word count is a symptom of major plot or pacing problems in a novel issues that need to be solved during the revision process.
Would you consider a post on memoir guidelines, since memoir falls somewhere between fiction and nonfiction in many ways. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable. Every category will have an average length, including childrens books, young adult, business books, etc. A short story has a word count of under 20,000 words though anything over 10,000 puts it into that no mans land along with novellas where its a long slog for a short story but too short for anything resembling a novel. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. If youre writing for a more literary audience, then the rules above apply on upper limits. Jun 27, 2019 whats important to remember is that a word count that exceeds industry standards is not merely an arbitrary reason for publishers and agents to refuse a query or pitch. But for mainstream ya it is always best to stick to under 80k. So, the average wordcount for a typical novel is anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Jun 15, 2017 this is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. Sep 16, 2019 the rules are continually evolving, so theres no need for you to feel constrained by some unwritten law that says your book needs to be of a certain length. Search for word count totals in books word counters.
First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. But while the length of a novel is to a large extent up to its writer, lengths may also vary by subgenre. Ive heard and read several reasons for this, including. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book. I used the lexham hebrew bible and the nestlealand novum testamentum graece for these word counts. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. In other words, you must be scrupulous about editing every sentence for length. 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. I believe i made the right decision for book length, telling the story until complete, but what about my next poetry book. Because yes, different types of books require different book lengths. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right.
Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. In many respects the word count is the wrong question. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. 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.
This is due in large part to the variety of subgenres within it and the trend for a book series with an ever greater word count. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. For this reason, its not surprising that aspiring authors have questions about the appropriate length of a manuscript. Traditionally published mysteries, like the books of sara paretsky, louise penny, laurie r. Lets take a quick tour of copy fitting, casting off and related issues here. In terms of adult mainstream fiction, that length would be considered a novella. The golden extent for many publishers is 288 pages about 90100,000 words without tables or figures. Zi thought less in terms of pages than word count, and suggested i work toward a goal of 100,000 words.
May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. The publishing industry has changed drastically in that time, and word counts arent nearly as rigid nor as important as they once were, especially for writers who are now producing e. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. 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. Larson writes science fiction with a word count around 100k. Science fiction and fantasy novels typically have a word count between 90,000 to 125,000 words.
Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and novels and memoirs and. For novels specifically in the young adult genre, the typical range is between 55,000 79,999 words. The sweet spot, according to donald maas, is 100,000 to 115,000 words. Ebook word count by genre the average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages.
While its possible to go over or under the 32pages, it is often best to keep to this standard. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. 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. Getting the appropriate story length is essential to getting published. Novelist jane smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel.
A single novel can be longer, but once the length is above 110,000 words publishers may look at cutting it back, unless it is a particular kind of book books over the 110k word count are usually considered epics. Let me tell you about how i had to remove my membership from a childrens writer forum because i responded to a newbie about this topic. You can use comparable, successful books as models to determine the length you book should be. Childrens fiction is so varied in terms of length, type, illustration. I just laid out a 65,000word book and it ended up, with a couple pages of photos and a few pages of appendix, at 268 pages the pages in the main body of the text are numbered up to 237. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Middle grade is from 20,000 55,000, depending on the subject matter and age range, and the word count of these books has been trending up in recent years.
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