When talking about book length, its common to talk about word count. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. 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. I counted the number of words on page 7 of night whispers, then multiplied by the number of pages, then rounded, and so theres aout 4 words per book. Using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. 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. For the larger, 6 x 9 trim size, would be about 300 words per page. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. For a book in the 200300 page range, you are looking at 150250,000 words.
I asked agents elizabeth pomada and michael larsen of larsen pomada literary agency to add their thoughts to the subject. Having said all that, there are a number of conventions regarding word count. 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. Your book will fall under this wide genre if it features anything healthrelated.
Unlike other book genres, there isnt a defined standard for a business books word count. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. Realize it over the maximum word count for erotic, science fictionfantasy genre. These books are generally heftier in general, so for a 150page book you can target 45,000 words and 60,000 words for a 200page book. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. There is a trend, however, for business books to be shorter. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. So should i stay with this word count, or try to bring the word count down. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the.
Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. I believe the word count has increased as she wrote more books. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. 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. 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. Most blogs and writer websites had the moreorless the same advice forget the length and the average word count of your novel. All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be. So, what is the average length of a nonfiction book. You must provide an accurate word count per page or by document when you are submitting a literary project. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing stack. This also did not include business books for a specific function such as a mathematical explanation textbook on option pricing. It was well worth the money i spent on it, since it lists every agent in the business and what he or she is.
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. 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. Wordprocessing programs have a function that calculates the number automatically, but the results are not reliable in the publishing world. Count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage. That will give you a good guide if you want to emulate it. Discover the average number of words on a page by counting the number of words on three randomly picked full pages distributed throughout the book. According to this cool site, the one minute manager, talked about i.
Seth godin uses 30,655 words to describe a purple cow. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. Whether its before youve typed out the first word, or right up to one week before. And the truth is the word count really is an average of a very wide range of possibilities here are the word counts for 10 books you might know. This article how to write a bestselling business book has a good, concise, logical answer on the ideal length today for a business book less than 100 pages. 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. As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. How to write a bestselling business book bloomberg.
The ideal book length depends not only on your content, but on strategy. Our book page count calculator will help you figure out how many pages your final book will contain based off of our your current word count. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. The 1 thing you need to do to write a new york times. The first book in each series below was the authors first. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words.
Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively. Does the word count affect the price i can charge for. Search for word count totals in books word counters. If youre working on a novellength book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least but its better to aim for 90,000. In contrast, word count is finite and usually i can calculate book length with about 99% accuracy in part because also included in any calculation is a count of figures, tables, etc. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference.
Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. Young adult counts are much less than that, usually in the 100125,000 word range. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. The health book genre is vast and covers a wide variety of different topics. The average length of a nonfiction book is 50,000 words, with some books falling at around 3540,000 words, and others running as long as 70,000. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures. This question came in as a reader comment on one of the earlier blog posts. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three.
When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words. Docs so it was easy to get a total word count at the end of each session. Most often, motivational books can be lumped in with other book genres like health, fitness, business, and selfhelp. 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. Coyne uses the nanowrimo wordcount length of 50,000 words for his examples, calling 50,000 words a good foundation to build upon. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. Can be publisher specific, ranging from 3,000 to absolute max 5,000. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says. Otherwise you risk damaging your reputation, your brand and your business. 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.
But truly, there is no meaningful average, as book lengths and word counts are all over the map. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsper. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. Im not sure if im pushing the word count over, been trying cut back the word count. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. 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. Most business books in general are 200 or less simply because after that point it becomes very repetitive or the content gets very specific, limiting the audience of the book. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per.
Malcolm gladwells book, blink is a 70,731word message. The most important thing here is to realize that there are always exceptions to these rules. 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. Steve farbers radical leap tells the story in 33,825 words. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. According to chuck sambuchino see below for word count. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Standard nonfiction business, political science, psychology, history, etc. On average, one doublespaced page has 250300 words. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job.
Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized 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. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. On average, how many words a day do published authors write. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. This question about average word count was on my mind as well, when i started writing my book. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. What is the ideal word count for a nonfiction book in the. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. This includes business, selfhelp, political science, history, science. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted.