Average book length number of words in a paperback book

A books word count does matter and if you get it wrong, this can impact your. Your book length should be determined by its usefulness to the reader, not just your personal agenda. Aug 10, 2011 the book length on kindle is rather useless since you dont get a real book length. One rule of thumb is you can get 60 percent of a manuscript page into one typeset page said manuscript being in 12point type, doublespaced, preferably times new roman, with oneinch margins on an 8. This one is a common strategy that seems to be pretty effective. Learn how to estimate your page count and how long your book. 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. You can follow any responses to this entry through the rss 2.

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. Theyll pad out a short manuscript with large type and more leading, but lengthy manuscripts will correspondingly be compressed. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isnt novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much. This latter tends to be priced at the 100 page mark so preferred lengths tend to come in. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says. Nonfiction books also vary tremendously in word count. 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.

At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below. This gives you 200 large print, 500 for an academic book with 350 words per paperback page as a working average. I asked agents elizabeth pomada and michael larsen of larsen pomada literary agency to add their thoughts to the subject. The sacrifice of smaller earnings on the first book then pays. You may decide that compensation isnt your end goal and your publication is more about creating a. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. Id guess that the actual average number of words in a novel was somewhere close to 90,000 words. Setting page size and margins a few key terms before you start. Now we have computers and word processing software.

Although science fiction and some other genres have been creeping up and can now exceed 400 pages 200,000 words. For a novel, i would recommend at least 50,000 words in length. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. 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 book s amazon sales page. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. Paperback books typically contain how many words per page. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. All book publishers and book designers have a standard they go by to estimate page length.

Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. Today, even after the introduction of what amazon calls version 2. 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. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the book, and for ya novels the average is 50,000 70,000 words. The book length on kindle is rather useless since you dont get a real book length. However, some pages have a different number of lines and some lines have a different number of words. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Viceversa, if your book is short, a smaller trim size can make it physically seem more substantial. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and novels and memoirs and childrens novels and picture books. The ultimate guide to choosing the right price for your book. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. Jun 07, 2017 in my opinion, if your nonfiction book is fewer than about 30,000 words 120 pages, it does not feel substantial enough to be real book. Oct 25, 2018 keep in mind that the average compensation per book matters less the more books you sell, which depends on your business model.

The trade paperback is 314 which is at least 350 on a standard paper book. How many pages would my manuscript be in paperback. However, book length varies widely between genres, among authors, and based on the content of the book. However, many authors, frustrated with the low price of ebooks, have taken to writing ebooks that are between 40,000 and 50,000. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count calculator we put at the bottom of this page. Publishers want to know the overall length of your book. Before our book page count calculator, you had to dig around through multiple sources to figure out how many words per page for your exact font size and then do the math. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures. 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.

Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. A novelist of my acquaintance insists that the only way to estimate the number of words in a book is to multiply the number of pages by 250. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. When you embark on the journey of getting a book published theres a lot to consider and one of the things that should be on your priority list is how much youll be pricing your book for, which is a key piece of your book metadata. Sep 11, 2010 i was looking online and most of the sources i found said the average number of words per novel page is 250, and the average words per book were 60,000120,000. In my experience, individual short stories dont tend to sell well on kindle compared to novels. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. As soon as you get serious about selfpublishing a book, you are confronted with the choice of what size your book ought to be. Kindle publishing faq tck publishing book publisher and.

One of the questions that a new writer often asks is how long should my book be. That was the formula in the good old days when courier was the only typeface and typewriters were king. Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. I subscribe to the childrens book insider from and they say the average length is around words. Jul 23, 2012 the average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. Well, calculating it out, that would mean the average book was 240480 pages. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. In fiction, a short book is between 50,000 to 80,000 words roughly 200 300 pages in paperback. For a compilation of short stories, i would shoot for at least 30,000 words. Kindle finally updated the page count to 276 from 114. I was looking online and most of the sources i found said the average number of words per novel page is 250, and the average words per book were 60,000120,000. I suspect they correlated complaints i paid 99 cents for a book of x words.

I thought the average for a midsized novel would be around 100200 pages. In fact, the majority of printed books are turned into ebooks. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 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. A printed paperback may have as many as 400 words per page, depending upon font size and book dimensions. Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans. I know you said theyre guidelines, but is 800 mine is around 900 too much now. Ideally, you want to give your reader something she knows. Kindle publishing faq tck publishing book publisher. Of course youre correct about 2,500 words not being carved in stone anywhere, but amazon might have a good reason for choosing that number. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words.

You would think i would be considered a big selling name or something, but i am not a big deal in my genre. Oct 27, 2018 i use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. A rough guideline to start with would be 500010,000 words per book. You can see that this is a little less than 400 words per page in paperback. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. Im curious about your advice compose the novel in the standard format from the start rather than changing it later why does this matter. But i dont like to do things halfheartedly, so here is the bigger picture of length in fiction a novel is anything over 50,000 words. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. But while the length of a novel is to a large extent up to its writer, lengths may also vary by subgenre. Word count signals to people what kind of book theyre dealing with.

This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. I just counted 38 lines averaging 12 words per line, which, of course is 456. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. For adult fiction especially crime, thrillers, womens fiction, saga and romance, 100,000 words is a good benchmark to aim for. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless. Guess how many words are in a novel by gabe habash for pwxyz according to amazon s great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically written for the category. This entry was posted on monday, may 11th, 2009 at 11.

Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. 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. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site post navigation. 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 dont forget that publishers employ different font sizes and leading depending on how long a book is in words. Jun 27, 2019 a story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. 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. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. An ebook could be 3,000 words or as long as a fulllength book. Most published books average closer to 300 words per page than 200.

Digital publishing, on the other hand, is not constrained by size. Print publishers rarely accept books that are excessively short or excessively long. Then consider writing a manuscript of similar length. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. Lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, roald dahls charlie and the chocolate factory. 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. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11. Long book length at the other end of the spectrum a book of 80,000 to 100,000 words has significant heft, 320400 pages. Depending on difficulty of book, size of page, line spacing, an average paperback book can have anywhere from 100 words per page to more than 400 words per page. Mar 20, 2020 an ebook could be 3,000 words or as long as a full length book. Last year i went through a 5 book ya series average 400450 pages each in about a week but it takes me a lot longer to get through one of the books im currently read with fewer total pages because of the amount of words per page and how dense it is.

That said, each manuscript should be long enough to adequately tell its story or. Total book sales for all seven books total over 418,000 this is only my ebooks sales, does not include my audio sales or paperback. I actually remember this perhaps incorrectly from an episode of the tv series castle. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. You mentioned about 500much lower than i would have thought. Trim sizes in this post were updated on january 30, 2015. Such books will have a minimum length of 75,000 words but seldom exceed 110,000. Using this exercise, you should end up with a good idea of book length expectations for a novel like yours. Books for 7 to 9yearold readers would probably start at the 15,000 word mark, rarely going higher than 30,000 words.

Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or. Jun 24, 2019 total book sales for all seven books total over 418,000 this is only my ebooks sales, does not include my audio sales or paperback. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average. 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. Build your book format a paperback manuscript word for. Eye of the world was one of the more normally distributed book in terms of chapter wordcount, which essentially means it had a mostcommon chapter length and a comparable number of chapters that were longer or shorter the dragon reborn was rightskewed, which means there was a heavy distribution of. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time. This is a lot of information at a glance, so ill distill a few salient observations. Length matters in a book that has a spine to which pages must be attached. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter.