Average word count for a book

Aug 05, 2019 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. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to be. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. 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. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. Picture story books for older children between the ages of 6 and 10 include more text with each picture. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages.

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. Generally a 50,000 word novel would be the minimum word count. Nicholas sparks word count popular novel word count. Now, this doesnt mean that you have to compromise your manuscript and make it homogeneous, however by trying to tick a few boxes it might. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. That makes them more expensive to print and a bigger investment. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. Yes, if you are hugely successful with your first book, your publisher will want lots more books from you. 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.

May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Writing for young adults a look at the numbers hannah holt. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. Got a friend who is trying the mainstream route for her book and is still being told by agents and writing tutors that the ms must be 85,000 words. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless.

While theres no reliable statistic, heres an interesting post on word count from the blog of former agent colleen lindsay. If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book category. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. Short novels in general hit around 40,000 to 60,000 words, but most publishers wont touch a novel below 60,000.

The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. Nicholas sparks word count the notebook 38,520 message in a bottle 92,760 a walk to remember 49,311 the rescue 100,916 a bend in the road 93,766. What is the average number of actual words in comic books. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is the quality of your manuscript.

As a result, a 100k manuscript can size up very differently on a shelf. Most memoirs need to be in the 70,000 to 100,000word range. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has 17 chapters with titles, and about 4560 words per chapter. Do you want to publish a wide format bookwith inspiring quotes down the side margins. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. With fun, lighthearted, simple middle grade youll want to stay around the 20k30k word count range. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212.

It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. I publish my books first on smashwords and then, after they pass vetting for the smashwords premium catalog, i publish them on amazon as well. Longer books increase the number of pages that need to be printed. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres, check out the breakdown in the article. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. My ebooks and paperbacks range 72k to 101k and all sell. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. 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.

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. This is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. Search for word count totals in books word counters. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. An adult fiction book is most marketable in the suggested word count. What is a good way to get the word count of a kindle book. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book.

Frequently asked questions on getting published how can i get the book ive written published. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words.

If you have 6 panels, stick to a maximum of 35 words per panel. Average word count in a book book editing services. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Apr 11, 2015 nicholas sparks word count the notebook 38,520 message in a bottle 92,760 a walk to remember 49,311 the rescue 100,916 a bend in the road 93,766. A manuscript over 40,000 words is considered to be a novel. 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 binding, font and paper size establish how many pages a published book will be. Authors often ask me about average word lengths for their manuscripts. Jul, 2017 i dont think there is a way and this is odd. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. 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. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid.

There are a lot of elements that go into writing a story, like fleshing out characters, piecing together the plot, and crafting the perfect ending. On a scale of one bad to ten excellent, chapter books rate their agents overall as an 8. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. Jan 08, 2018 now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. At an average reading rate of 125 words per minute, thats about 145 hours of reading. However, very few novels these days are as short as that. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. 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.

The post lists a dizzying number of genres and a recommended word count range for each. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. The average word count in a book is between 60,000 and 100,000 words. Know your content, know your mainline pitch and some possible permutations, create a highlevel outline, write a compelling chapter and sell that. Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature. Young adult fiction allows for a lot of flexibility in word count. Id love to word count published novels to find out how many really are 85,000.

For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. If you are an author of a book or know of a books accurate wordcount, contact me. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. 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. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page.

The average mean word count was about 73,000 words. Typically books of poems with 1 page per poem are around 2530 pages long, however i have seen books that are longer than 50 poems. To save the time and effort of counting wordbyword, often a rule of thumb for the average number of words per line was used, such as 10 words per. In north america, the standard used by editorial staff in figuring word count is 250 words per page, 10 words per line using a 12 pt. Count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage. I dont mind a publisher, agent or even a writer giving us his opinion of what word count makes a book, but to try to pass it off as definitive is more than arrogant. If youre new to selfpublishing on amazon and wondering, just how much should i write for my kindle book. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. 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. Hence, a manuscript not a published book of 200 pages is figured at 250 wpp x 200 pages 50,000 words. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. Word count varied from 5,000 words to 40,000 words, with an average mean of 17,200 and a median word count of 8,500. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count.

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. The first book in each series below was the authors first. There is a sweet spot when it comes to word count, and its based on a books genre and target audience. Recently i got asked this question, what is the ideal length word count wise for my first book. 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. But the thing is, that thick book that you see in a bookstore may actually contain fewer words than you think. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. If the word count of twilight is disregarded, the average becomes around 88,625. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. This tool is helpful for all authors everywhere who want to figure out how many pages their final book will contain based on their current word count. 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. There are many different different paths to getting published. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively.

Never pad your manuscript just to meet a word count guideline. Books in this genre are also often gag gifts or are meant to be facetious. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. Famous book series and novel word counts number of words. Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. The writing market has changed a lot since i first got published. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. Audiences are used to a certain story length and page count. Only if youre a major celebrity can you blow right through that word count and just keep going.

We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. But, most nonfiction publishers want to be sold the concept, and therefore be able to discuss the direction of the project, before you write the book. Yes, the more successful your books, the longer they will get to be without anyone batting an eyelash see. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. With that in mind, ive tried to put together the definitive post on word count for fiction novels, young adult, middle grade, childrens. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to. 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. For that group, a novel is more than 40k words, a novella is 17.

Upper middle grade can hit in the 50k word count range possibly longer, if its something really special. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. The word counts of some popular ya novels we often go around thinking that fat, thick books with huge word counts are the best.

Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. How to use our book page count calculator select your word print size select the book genre enter your books word count. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. 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. Oftentimes, professional editing will cut down the unnecessary information so your memoir is the appropriate word count. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a wordcount guideline. We explain two easy methods to estimate your books page count. Word counts of famous book series harry potter by jk rowling. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. On the technical side of things, authors need to consider the number of words that will be in their completed manuscript. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. Writing chapter books a look at the numbers hannah holt. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages.