We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. Writing middle grade a look at the numbers hannah holt. This averages to about 22 to 23 chapters per novel, with the average chapter length around 4,280 words. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. How many pages would my manuscript be in paperback. On average, one doublespaced page has 250300 words. 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. Heres how 90,000 words which is 360 pages at 250 words per page breaks down by act. As a publisher who has laid out dozens of books for printinga 50,000 word manuscript should end up somewhere between 180 and 220 pages. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. How many chapters will you need before you reach your target word count. How many word document pages are there in a 350 page.
At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. 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. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. Multiply the average number of words per line by the number of lines on a full page. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. Check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted then go to the last page before any bibliography, acknowledgements, appendices, etc. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle.
I was scared that agents would reject my book simply because i had got the length wrong. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. 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. For example, childrens books are going to have fewer words per page than a book meant for adult readers. 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.
When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. What is the average word count per page on an essay. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has an average of 4,560 words per chapter. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page 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. 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. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. Word count signals to people what kind of book theyre dealing with. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience.
These questions made us fill the need of a book page count calculator we put at the bottom of this page. Do check your comparable titlesrecent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. This 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. 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.
This reduction will be very small, like maybe 12 lines less per page, and 510 pages less for the book. Count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage. Just to keep in mind, the average one spaced page usually contains about 3000 characters or 500 words. Word count to book pages resources for independent authors. Now, depending on how youve setup your document your page count may vary slightly, but with arial or times new roman 12 point font and conventional margins you should see similar results. You have to remember that the publishers printer whoever they may be uses a program to put the manuscript in book form. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. How many words per page are there in a typical novel. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle. Most middle grade novels are between 40,000 and 69,000 words long. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job.
What is the generally accepted number of words per page for a published novel. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Sara, in a manuscript written solely in msword, that would be 87,500 with the professionally calculated 250 words per page times 350 pages. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. If you are an author of a book or know of a books accurate wordcount, contact me. Ultimately, you can expect there to be roughly 300 words per page in a book you write as a whole. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Because dialogue requires paragraph breaks, there will be fewer words than if you have a few pages of full paragraphs instead of dialogue. These books are for readers between the ages of 6 and 10 and can have as many as 3,500 words. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page.
The following are average wordcount ranges by genre. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. If you want to know the total word count for your document, then multiply this number by the number of pages it contains. The average mean word count was about 53,000 words. Thus, divide your word count by 300 and you again get an approximate number of pages. However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. Divide your word count by 390 to arrive at the approximate number of pages ex. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. Estimate a small reduction for the lines per page and the numberof pages values.
Im presently working on a novel and want to make certain my. Armed with these word counts, i now have a range of lengths that have been proven popular. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. As basic info, you need to know the word count, not the page count, of the book you would narrate. The word count at big five publishers had a slightly narrower range. Depending on the text formatting, a page word count may include from 200 large print up to 600 words academic book. Word count assuming your manuscript is in courier 12 with 1inch margins in a manuscript will come out to about 250 words per page. Each genre and subgenre has its own word count range. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average.
The hunger games has 27 untitled chapters, and about 3700 words per chapter. Pauls article shows you a formula to calculate finished time. Count characters and words with the anycount tool for a precise estimate and get every single cent youve earned. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. Estimate your page count book designer fiona raven. 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. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. Another general guideline is to assume that your book will average 300 words per page.
Also, the chapters are evenly divided into 3 titled parts. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. 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. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. 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. Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. The answer is one page single spaced or two pages double spaced. 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. The third answer, because its a page count, not a word count.
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. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. This is useful only as a writers alternate way of assessing the length of a manuscript, nothing more. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year.
Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer. Its up to you within reason before you decide your average chapter length, its a good idea to think about the purpose behind dividing a book into chapters. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. 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. The chapters are short and simple with only an illustration or two per chapter. You can figure out the finished runtime based on the word count. For instance, audible uses an average rate of speed of 155 words a minute, or 9300 words per finished hour. The typical books words per page count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. Generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count.
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