Typical book length word count

Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. As you can see, you need to know your word count, not the number of pages your word processor produces. Jul 23, 2012 still unsure of how long to make your nonfiction book. Would you consider a post on memoir guidelines, since memoir falls somewhere between fiction and nonfiction in many ways. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Using e publisher word count will almost always give you more words than the straight word count. Calculate book page count using word count for book design.

I tend to be a very unconventional author when it comes to chapter length and word count for the entire novel. Word count limits sometimes seem as though they are stifling artistic flow, but they are usually there for a reason, says freelance editor lisa howard. 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. Go out and find similar books to the one you want to write and figure out how many words are in the book. Know the recommended book length for the genre youre writing in. 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. But rules are made to be broken, and the most successful publishing phenomenon in history did just that. Editor dana isaacson discusses desirable word counts for different genres. Less than 70,000 unless fantasy scifi supernatural, which can be longer, max 90,000. May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. I generally write horrorfantasy, as a result much more description is required to properly tell the story. If you want to write a memoir, for example, look at four or five similar memoirs and determine their wordcount.

The golden extent for many publishers is 288 pages about 90100,000 words without tables or figures. Coyne uses the nanowrimo wordcount length of 50,000 words for his examples, calling 50,000 words a good foundation to build upon. 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. If youre using open office, the word count is visible in the bottom left corner. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book. In terms of adult mainstream fiction, that length would be considered a novella.

Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. For a book about the deeper rhythms of love, these responses please me to no end. 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. I believe i made the right decision for book length, telling the story until complete, but what about my next poetry book. 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. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading.

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. 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. September 28, 2015 methods, plays, publishing, writing, zilch length, page count, play, word count lazybeescripts so youve written your play, now you want to know if its the right length. Still unsure of how long to make your nonfiction book. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. On average, how long is a childrens book for children. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Go to a bookstore and support your fellow authors by purchasing these books, or check them out of the library. A single novel can be longer, but once the length is above 110,000 words publishers may. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature.

How many words in a novel vary depending on genre, audience, and the story itself. Your job is to write a good story, and that means including all the detail needed to to make it good, and to leave out anything extraneous. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. A books word count does matter and if you get it wrong, this can impact. T he indie author chris fox coined the term potato chip chapters for easilydigestible book chapters of a certain size. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. Ive heard and read several reasons for this, including. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length.

Ya novels are rarely over 75k, historical novels go up to 120k, ditto speculative fiction. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted. If youre working on a novellength book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least but its better to aim for 90,000. Count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage. If your story justifies the length, you neednt worry if you get up to 150,000 words. While many agents say they wont reject a book solely based on length, many also say they take word count into consideration. For young adult fiction, the word count is once again lower, with the ideal. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count.

How to calculate your books length before writing helping. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. However sometimes, like today, the reverse happens. 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. Upper middle grade can hit in the 50k word count range possibly longer, if its something really special. Books that can be read by many ages are called crossover books. 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. On one level, you could argue that word count, or length, is probably the last thing a fiction writer should worry about.

Generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. In the meantime, overwriting to the point that your draft exceeds typical word count ranges is a common issue and those widelyaccepted ranges arent completely arbitrary. 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. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. When it comes to chapter length and layout, my rule is uniform throughout all my works. If youre hoping to land a book deal with a traditional publisher, you dont want to. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. If the editor doesnt care and you get paid by word for your articles, using publisher word count can increase your salary for an article by as much as 30% if you write for magazines or newspapers on a per word basis, this count is your friend. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing.

With that in mind, ive tried to put together the definitive post on word count for fiction novels, young adult, middle grade, childrens books and even memoir. While every book can be an exception, you are far better staying within suggested guidelines for book length if you want your book to be accepted by publishers, parents and young readers. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. If you know how long the book is, you can divide it into eighths to find the perfect timing for all your major turning points. Literary agent danielle zigner takes a look at typical novel lengths and what. Word count gives the most accurate depiction of your books length to publishers and readers. 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. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Word count and book length one of my biggest problems as a publisher is having authors deliver more than was agreed to.

The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. But for mainstream ya it is always best to stick to under 80k. Jun 15, 2017 this is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. I wont mention the harry potter or inheritance series, because harry potter breaks the rules as its so popular and hence word count doesnt matter, and. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable. 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. Young adult fiction allows for a lot of flexibility in word count. 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. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors.

While its important that every story find its natural length, it takes time to develop an instinct as to what that length is. It wasnt so much about the quality of the poems but the length of the book. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. The biggest suggestion one of my beta readers had for me was to cut the book in half release half of it now and the other half at a later date. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. 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. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace. To view word count in pages on a mac, go to the toolbar and click view show word count. If you want to write a memoir, for example, look at four or five similar memoirs and determine their word count. Smiley lists novels as typically being between 100,000 and 175,000 words, while national novel. For novels specifically in the young adult genre, the typical range is between 55,000 79,999 words.

In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. If i were to ask you how long your book is, and you answer that it is 225 manuscript pages, i am still not clear. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000word range. We explain two easy methods to estimate your books page count.

For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Bestselling author caleb carr may write novels of 250,000 words, but when. Readability is the key consideration in choosing font and spacing for the print version of your book. This is a question that many beginning writers have. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. When talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. Sep 12, 2018 by book do you mean novel or nonfiction. The best way to find out how many pages will be in your book is to use this calculation method. The 57 year old reading range straddles a few different categories of books. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words.

Novels intended for the adult market will be longer than those targeted at children and young adults. The skys the limit for the maximum length, though anything over 250,000 is getting into war and peace territory. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers. Word count for novels and books is something i dont think about too often until i travel to a writers conference, and then someone asks a simple, innocent question. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. Im curious about your advice compose the novel in the standard format from the start rather than changing it later why does this matter.

Publisher word count for magazine writing word counter blog. Depending on your genre, having too many or too little can not only hurt your book sales. Sep 30, 2015 word count gives the most accurate depiction of your books length to publishers and readers. And as youve probably guessed it is sitting pretty right in between middle grade and adult. 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. Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans. Step 4 is measure your manuscript in word count, not pages. A young adult novel will run between 20,000 and 40,000 words. Apr 05, 2015 generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count. 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.

That doesnt mean you can submit a manuscript twice the length a publisher recommends. If you dont know how to find your documents word count, this article shows you how. Ya manuscripts can have a word count anywhere from 55k to 90k. If you plan to turn your ebook into a print book at some point, you might want to consider length.

If youre hoping to land a book deal with a traditional publisher, you dont want to give an editor a reason to turn your book away. The page count is 32 or 40 pages with a word count of under 1,500. This looks like a simple question, but you have to look at several factors before you can determine optimum length. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and novels and memoirs and childrens novels and picture books. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. 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. Within the publishing industry we tend to talk about the length of a book in words rather. Generally speaking, the average novel word count is between 60,000 and 90,000 words. Lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, roald dahls charlie and the chocolate factory, and george orwells animal farm all came in under the 40,000 mark. The best word count for your selfpublished novel self. 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. Word count for novels and childrens books writers digest.