Average number of words in a paperback novel

Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page.

We teach you how many words to write in your specific genre and. No more than 90,000 words seems to be the editors mantra these days. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Paperback books typically contain how many words per page. Yes, exceptions for a first novel can be found, but writers who depend upon being the exception are. This gives you 200 large print, 500 for an academic book with 350 words per paperback page as a working average. So, the average wordcount for a typical novel is anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words.

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. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. A novel paperback march, 2007 by chad kultgen author. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. How many pages would my manuscript be in paperback. Typically, a book that is published in paperback format at a length of 300400 pages will come in between 80,000 and 100,000 words.

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. In two minutes, i found ebooks ranging from 10 to 950 pages. At bottom, though, the better rule of thumb is as many words as it takes to get your story told. Using amazons number of words as a guide, 5,000 words would equal 26. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a standard paperback novel format. 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. For much of the 20th century, novels averaged 75,000 to 80,000 words, making a book of fewer than 250 pages and sometimes barely 200. May 14, 2018 with a track record to back them up, established writers have greater flexibility. I am 42000 words in to my first novel and i have 39 chapters, so on average its just over words per chapter, though some may be nearer 2000. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. There were rumors in 20 that amazon had set a minimum word. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. Of course some of those lines may only have 3 or 4 words for dialogue.

You only get away with novels of that scale if the story has an epic quality and storytelling is remorselessly. A novel of 50,000 would be the absolute minimum for some genres and, unless you are ken follett or some other established author, you should view 100,000 as the maximum. Do check your comparable titles recent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range. 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.

Jun 24, 2019 be aware that the word average means that for every book that sells 15,000, there is one that sells 5,000. If you read the novels of say, james clavell, herman wouk or jean m. And for every book that sells 20,000, there is one that is a disaster. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average.

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. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. Well, calculating it out, that would mean the average book was 240480 pages. When the final work is printed for sale and published, the number of words per page will differ. Larger print, or smaller print, of course, and wider or narrower margins, can make that vary, depending. How many words per page are there in a typical novel. On average, young adult novels usually fall around 55,000 and 70,000 words. Why modern novelists need to watch their weight books the.

To put these numbers in perspective, if you type with a font size of 10, you could be packing nearly words on each a4 page which would make nearly 3 paperback pages. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. For adult fiction especially crime, thrillers, womens fiction, saga and romance, 100,000 words is a good benchmark to aim for. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. Larger print, or smaller print, of course, and wider. Each genre and subgenre has its own word count range. 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. Agatha christie, the bestselling mystery writer of all time, wrote novels that averaged about 40,000 to 60,000 words. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Apr 11, 2015 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. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or. However, most agents and writers say your mystery novel should be the same word count as general fiction, 80,000 to 90,000 words.

As soon as you get serious about selfpublishing a book, you are confronted with the choice of what size your book ought to be. A manuscript for a novel is typically 500 words per page if singlespaced. Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Feb 18, 2012 for much of the 20th century, novels averaged 75,000 to 80,000 words, making a book of fewer than 250 pages and sometimes barely 200. Feb 19, 2009 a regular book would be around 50,000 words, but there are exceptions. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference.

By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. Give or take, the average paperback has 250350 words per page. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price for the translation job. But i also know of others who have sold over 500,000 copies. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. 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. The average words from 60,000 words to 200,000 or more words in a whole novel. Why modern novelists need to watch their weight books. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. Auel, it would not be surprising that the words could go to 10 times the average, or 500,000 words in a single novel. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a.

If youre drawn to writing much shorter tales, the ideal is to make them part of a series or to link them in some other way so that you can publish several of them in something vaguely novelsized. Bestselling author caleb carr may write novels of 250,000 words, but when you pitch your novel and offer up that number, be prepared for a glacial reception. Here are five recent fiction titles and the number of pages they have in paperback. If that number is significantly lower than 80,000, be aware that some folks will put in a class other than the novel.

Aug 05, 2019 writers digest recommends 80,000 to 89,999 words as a 100% safe range for literary, mainstream, womens, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller and horror. 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. Jul 23, 2006 it usually amounts to 80,000120,000 words. Well do more research on this, but if in doubt, shoot for 80,000 words. Because novels mostly cluster at the shorter end of that 70120k spectrum.

The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. A change of scene, a change of chapter seems to make sense to me. This is another common question, and for most writers it should be easy to answer by using. 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 250 words perpage rule is a copysetting estimate. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words.

I personally find the trend these days, particularly in thrillers, is to use shorter chapters. Thats approximately 300 pages of doublespaced type. Knowing how many words in a novel is the first step toward writing a book. All this relates to the standard paperback size book. 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. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. May 07, 2018 this 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words.

The number of words in a novel will vary depending on the genre. Jun 27, 2019 a story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. That doesnt change no matter how the book is formatted. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Sycamore row, john grisham 642 pages the invention of wings, sue monk kidd paperback 384 pages concealed in death, nora robertsj. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. 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. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. An ebook with 15 pages amounts to only around 3000 words. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. For example, if your book has about 20 chapters, you can put about 10,000 words in each chapter. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. In other words, a 12page story tends to be roughly 3000 words, etc. Id guess that the actual average number of words in a novel was somewhere close to 90,000 words.

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. Here are the average novel word counts in the top five genres in the book publishing industry in no particular order. I know of an author with a very large publisher whose novel has sold only 1,087 copies in its lifetime. 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. A 90,000 word count signals to professionals that you know what you are doing. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Feb 18, 2008 general rule of thumb is that a novel is 80k to 100k, but you can have 120k on larger novels.