Number of words in average book

How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. This averages to about 22 to 23 chapters per novel, with the average chapter length around 4,280 words. Online word counter tool count words and characters quickly. I asked agents elizabeth pomada and michael larsen of larsen pomada literary agency to add their thoughts to the subject. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically written for the category. Add screenshots or other graphics and youve got a nicesized ebook. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Though the average word count of a chapter is around 2,000 5,000 words, it all depends on your story. 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. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. Armed with these word counts, i now have a range of lengths that have been proven popular. All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic.

Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. The average length would depend on the genre of the novel. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. This is an art rather than a science but here are a few tips. There are plenty of books that purposefully play with the word counts of their chapters.

Such books will have a minimum length of 75,000 words but seldom exceed. Obviously, my point is not that you should submit a first book of anywhere near. Calculate the number of pages using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures. So, 253 x 500 126,500 words divided by an average of 225 words per minute. Today, however, while the physical size of a book may still matter in a bookstore, ebooks have no dimensions. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about.

Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. 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. Wikipedia suggests it is some 1 million words longer than the malazan book of the fallen, its chief competition for the honor omitting shared universe tales like those of mercedes. Paperback books typically contain how many words per page. Word count rules for novels are entirely different. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. For the larger, 6 x 9 trim size, would be about 300 words per page. To get an idea of what your book will look like you need to match the number of words per page on your word processing page to the finished printed page. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count calculator we put at the bottom of this page. The first answer, because its novella length, not novel length were talking adult fiction, not chapter books and novellas are hard to sell. 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 books amazon sales page. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. More important is whether or not your book reads like a picture book succinct, musical, pictorial. Today, even after the introduction of what amazon calls version 2.

Id guess that the actual average number of words in a novel was somewhere. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. This is because printers print on large sheets of paper and fold it. Having said all that, there are a number of conventions regarding word count. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Usually, this is about 400 for a standard academic book but only about 350 if the page size is demy octavo. That will give you a good guide if you want to emulate it. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Return to writing for children printmobilefriendly version. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average.

Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says. Longer word counts allowed for fantasy, scifi, historical. Targeted for 2 to 8yearold kids, this type of book typically has between 400 800 words. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. It only takes a quick scan of a handful of ebooks, say in the kindle store, to notice that the number of pages that constitutes an. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. And no agents or publishers would even look past that number. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. 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.

How many words are there on the average page of a novel. The hunger games has 27 untitled chapters, and about 3700 words per chapter. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. Pick 10 lines on a page that appear to contain the most number of words. I actually remember this perhaps incorrectly from an episode of the tv series castle.

What is the generally accepted number of words per page for a published novel. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. 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. How many words are in the average philosophy book answers. If you self pub, places such as amazon will print a book as low as 24 pages, so if your poetry is an epic poem it can be almost 1. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. Books range from several words to several thousand compare goodnight moon to the polar express. A 90,000 word count signals to professionals that you know what you are doing. I thought the average for a midsized novel would be around 100200 pages. That is saying a page with 12point font and double spaced with 1inch margins all around will average about 250 words, which were averaged at i believe 5 letters per word. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. If the content is stepbystep and high quality, 15 pages is enough for a 99 cent kindle book or a freebie used for lead generation.

Harry potter and the deathly hallows 198,000 words. Weighing in at over 4 million words, the wheel of time is assuredly among the longest fantasy series out there, although reliable data on the matter is elusive. Mind you that great classic, the little prince, was such a work. For instance, a romance novel may range from 50,000 to 90,000 words. In general there are probably about 250 to 300 words per page with a 12 point font. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid.

Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. Famous book series and novel word counts number of words. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. 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. 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.

Multiply the average number of words per line by the number of lines on a full page. Also, the chapters are evenly divided into 3 titled parts. I know of an author with a very large publisher whose novel has sold only 1,087 copies in its lifetime. Richard castle, played by actor nate fillion, is decripting a code and mentions that the average number of words per page in his nikki heat books is just bel. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. What is the average number of words in a typical self help. Divide the result by 10 to find the average number of words per line. The first alone has sold more than 120 million copies, and the rest have sold at least 65 million each. Word counts of famous book series harry potter by jk rowling. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. As with everything else when it comes to writing a book, these are only guidelinesnot rules. 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.

The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. You may also pick the lines from random pages in the document. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. 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. When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. 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. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel.

On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. 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. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. Harry potter and the halfblood prince 168,000 words. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done.

Ideally, you want to give your reader something she knows. The sorcerers stone 77,325 words the chamber of secrets 84,799 words the prisoner of azkaban 106,821 words. Ultimately, if they have five other books in your genre that are as good as. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. But i also know of others who have sold over 500,000 copies. Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. 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. Well, calculating it out, that would mean the average book was 240480 pages. With a track record to back them up, established writers have greater flexibility. 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. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke.