A single novel page runs from 200400 words, heavily influenced by the size of font, book, etc. Thats approximately 300 pages of doublespaced type. 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. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. Multiply the average number of words per line by the number of lines on a full page.
Second, its really tough to determine an average firstbook deal. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. This averages to about 22 to 23 chapters per novel, with the average chapter length around 4,280 words. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. An example of a book which started small and went way bigger, is write.
Mind you that great classic, the little prince, was such a work. The hunger games has 27 untitled chapters, and about 3700 words per chapter. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words. There were rumors in 20 that amazon had set a minimum word. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Oct 23, 2017 6 the average young adult author writes 3. And, in case youre wondering, here are the average word counts for other popular genres. In two minutes, i found ebooks ranging from 10 to 950 pages.
That was the formula in the good old days when courier. At above average reading speed you would need about 8 hours of above average reading speed to complete it. For example, hyperion chapter book manuscripts must currently be 2,5005,000 words maximum. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. Seth godin uses 30,655 words to describe a purple cow. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. For example, if an author has to write a minimum or maximum amount of words for an article, essay, report, story, book, paper, you name it. I told her it was far too many characters, but she disagreed because she was able to keep them all clear in her head. In 2017, the downward trend has continued, with an average book length of 273 pages. That said, the average word count for science fiction and fantasy. Same goes for published work, it all depends on the writer. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length.
That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. If you figure an average of about 250 words per page, then what about 60,000 words or so for an average book. May 11, 2009 for a printed book, 37,000 words is definitely on the short side less than 150 pages so publishers may not be interested as pricing will be low and volumes needing to be correspondingly high. 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. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. Oct 18, 2017 as with everything else when it comes to writing a book, these are only guidelinesnot rules. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. Some writers, like myself at times, write long chapters. Though the average word count of a chapter is around 2,000 5,000 words, it all depends on your story. Synonyms for amount at with free online thesaurus, antonyms, and definitions. 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.
I always try to make books for boys a little shorter. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. So with your 34 a book a day you would need to read 6 hours a day to read 53 books that were 120,000 words each in 74 days. Words counts of bestselling novels better novel project. The authors originally planned it to be 50,000 words, then went to 60,000 and eventually ended up at 80,000 words. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. So 25 50 k words is about right depending on your target age. Her first book had over 100 characters, not to mention named places. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. Jul 01, 2015 it may be an e book only not printed and designed as a reference tool for busy business people.
I find it is a stereotype, but boys are less prone to read longer books. Chapter books will come in at the lower end of the spectrum, while middlegrade books meant for older readers may even slightly exceed 55,000 words. Armed with these word counts, i now have a range of lengths that have been proven popular. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. Oct 10, 2016 most of the data ill be using throughout this article was sourced from writers digest and the manuscript appraisal agency, with any differences split to find the average. Some books has no chapters at all, while others use chapters to break up events in a book. Again, thats not a loan that needs to be paid back, but its advance that needs to be worked off or, in the parlance of the industry, it needs to be earned out. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words.
Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price for the translation job. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle. But, he also mentions that the wizard of oz was 40,000 words. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid.
Ideally, you want to give your reader something she knows. Jun 27, 2019 a story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. However, book length varies widely between genres, among authors, and based on the content of 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. So, the average wordcount for a typical novel is anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words. Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit. Depending on your genre, having too many or too little can not only hurt your book sales, but also cause fewer 5star.
The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Malcolm gladwells book, blink is a 70,731word message. 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. As with everything else when it comes to writing a book, these are only guidelinesnot rules. 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. 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. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. While other writers prefer small chapters, 20004000 words. 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. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page.
So, to answer your question, think longer rather than shorter. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. Chris, for trying to answer a big question with a small answer. Youve been paid that amount, but you havent earned anything back yet. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically written for the category. Lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, roald dahls charlie and the chocolate factory. Oct 02, 2006 of course it begs the question, how much material does it take to become publishworthy. Id guess that the actual average number of words in a novel was. Steve farbers radical leap tells the story in 33,825 words. Instead, i looked at various scenes at the beginning, middle and end of each book, and multiplied the page numbers by the number of words on an average page an average manuscript page is about 250 words, but paper and font sizes vary with published books, so i had to do sample page counts for each bookfor instance, my copy of old man and. Publishers want to know the overall length of your book. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter.
Using amazons number of words as a guide, 5,000 words would equal 26. An ebook with 15 pages amounts to only around 3000 words. A single word page is 500 words, going up to as much as 800 or as low as 400. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace.
Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average. This is because printers print on large sheets of paper and fold it. The novel that im writing is at 53,000 words and i was trying to figure out how many words is average for a book of my genre. 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. For a printed book, 37,000 words is definitely on the short side less than 150 pages so publishers may not be interested as pricing will be low and volumes needing to be correspondingly high. We recommend memoirs be between 45,000 to 80,000 words in order to maintain intrigue and reduce intimidation. Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. To put these numbers in perspective, if you type with a font size of 10, you could be packing nearly words on each a4 page which would make nearly 3 paperback pages. Apr 10, 2008 the average young adult book today is about 1200 pages. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. One of the smallest books i have read this year was only 380 pages, and had 120,000 words.
It may be an ebook only not printed and designed as a reference tool for busy business people. 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. This gives you 200 large print, 500 for an academic book with 350 words per paperback page as a working average. There are plenty of books that purposefully play with the word counts of their chapters. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising.
On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count calculator we put at the bottom of this page. All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as. Books can be as short as 25,000 words, around 100 pages, or as long as 3 million words, or about 1,000 pages. According to amazon s great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word. If you want to know the total word count for your document, then multiply this number by the number of pages it contains. Targeted for 2 to 8yearold kids, this type of book typically has between 400 800 words.
This makes me wonder if publishers choose book sizes based on average scene length, to create the illusion of a certain pace. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. Mine are around 6600 words which translate to about 20 pages in my current format. If you have questions about specific series of books, do some research read the books, check the catalogue, contact the publisher, etc. And no agents or publishers would even look past that number. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. All this relates to the standard paperback size book. This involves the manuscript being double spaced, with 12 pt tnr, arial, verdana or other easy to read font all throughout the manuscr. I have a friend who is writing a second in a series of police mysteries. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Stephen covey needed 100,519 words to explain the 7 habits of highly effective people. Mine average 300 words per page using verdana 12 or pt font and single spaced paragraphs. Writing for young adults a look at the numbers hannah holt.
The current average for published fiction is about 80,000 words for novels, i believe. Well, if you use standard modern manuscript formatting, about 2530,000 words total are in 100 manuscript pages. Regarding the value of adhering to standard word counts, jackie bates. Using this exercise, you should end up with a good idea of book length expectations for a novel like yours. This means your memoir will average between 150 and 265 pages. This number was significantly different from the average we had seen for the estimated print length that had been given in the product. The average young adult book today is about 1200 pages. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. Half were in the first 20% of the book, but she still added another in the last chapter. It took david allen 76,858 words to write his way of getting things. On average, when writing a memoir should not exceed 90,000 words and that is a stretch when it comes to memoir word count.