Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Books can be as short as 25,000 words, around 100 pages, or as long as 3 million words, or about 1,000 pages. I made some test text print outs and matched them to standard paperback versions. Aug 05, 2019 the average singlespaced document typed in 12point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending on your formatting. While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. 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. Casting off pages also once was a common practice in which the word count was used to determine how much paper a book would require. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345.
How many words per page are there in a typical novel. By using these three options to more accurately define your writing, the words per page calculator should provide a better estimate on how many words you need to write to fill a page. Lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, roald dahls charlie and the chocolate factory. On average, one doublespaced page has 250300 words. This gives you 200 large print, 500 for an academic book with 350 words per paperback page as a working average. As you can see, a smaller trim size will produce more pages for the same word count, and a larger trim size will produce less. Depending on the text formatting, a page word count may include from 200 large print up to 600 words academic book. Further, that font and size will put 49 singlespaced lines on a. So far, i have about 35,000 words typed for the book i plan to publish. How to write a highquality ebook in 30 days copyblogger. Jun 07, 2017 when talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. Oct 27, 2018 james patterson the mostselling author in the world is famous for his tiny chapter of a page and a half around 250500 words. May 11, 2009 32 responses to word count and book length.
In most cases, industry standard preferred length is 250 words per page. For example, childrens books are going to have fewer words per page than a book meant for adult readers. So if youre writing something on any sort of word processor and want to know how many pages as a. Single spaced, 3000 words yields about 6 pages, while double spacing produces around 12 pages.
If you want to see what size book is selling in your genre, take a look on the shelves. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. Just to keep in mind, the average one spaced page usually contains about 3000 characters or 500 words. So if youre writing something on any sort of word processor and want to know how many pages as a novel it would be than go to tools, then word count.
For a printed book, 37,000 words is definitely on the short side less than 150 pages so. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. In the opposite direction, it can give a more accurate estimate of how many pages you have created if you only know the word count. Count characters and words with the anycount tool for a precise estimate and get every single cent youve earned. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. Many category editors find it easier to judge the length of a book in the way theyve always done. The overview below provides an indication of the number of pages required based on font. How many words are there on the average page of a novel. If the average length is 300 pages, youre looking at a 75,000 word manuscript approximately. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count. In general there are probably about 250 to 300 words per page with a 12 point font.
So, if you have an hour to write and aim to get down 300 words, you might wonder, how many pages is 300 words and the answer is less than one. Because dialogue requires paragraph breaks, there will be fewer words than if you have a few pages of full paragraphs instead of dialogue. I am writing a novel right now, and im up to 4025 words in 10. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Now, i think, giving out a word count is a good faith benchmark. 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 average words from 60,000 words to 200,000 or more words in a whole novel. Each page one sided in novel format averages 250 words. About how many words of that size are in your average 250 300 page book. Oct 02, 2006 how many words does it take to make a book. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. These books are generally heftier in general, so for a 150 page book you can target 45,000 words and 60,000 words for a 200 page book. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages.
Most published books average closer to 300 words per page than 200. The truth is the number of words per page depends on a variety of factors such as the type of font, the font size, spacing elements, margin spacing, and paragraph length to. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. Hello, i was just wondering how many words the average novel has on a page. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. In 2017, the downward trend has continued, with an average book length of 273 pages. This entry was posted on monday, may 11th, 2009 at 11. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. Feb 26, 2008 each page one sided in novel format averages 250 words. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length.
In practice you need to subtract 1520% from the page word total once the white. One thing to keep in mind with how many pages is words is that it depends on the text, its size, and the spacing youre using. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. So a 400 page manuscript would be about 240,000 words. Oct 10, 2016 most of the data ill be using throughout this article was sourced from writers digest and the manuscript appraisal agency, with any differences split to find the average. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel.
No more than 90,000 words seems to be the editors mantra these days. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Words per page is a free online words to pages calculator which converts the numbers of words you write into pages and allows you to change margins, font size and fonts. All book publishers and book designers have a standard they go by to estimate page length. 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 line editing per 100 words. Oct 09, 2008 so far, i have about 35,000 words typed for the book i plan to publish. I would expect typical text whatever that is set in 12 point times new roman to contain approximately 600 words 4000 characters per page. In other words, a 12page story tends to be roughly 3000 words, etc. The industry standard for a manuscript page, however, is a firm 250 words. 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. James patterson the mostselling author in the world is famous for his tiny chapter of a page and a half around 250500 words.
The best way to tell for sure is to decide what size book you want the answer for paper b. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average. For example, if your book has about 20 chapters, you can put about. When i write i use times new roman 12 font, about 360 words per page with standard margins, less if theres a lot of dialogue. Most ebooks i see are double spaced, which makes their pages clearer but also reduces the number of words per page. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words.
It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. 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. You can follow any responses to this entry through the rss 2. If you want to know the total word count for your document, then multiply this number by the number of pages it contains. 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. Editors and agents often quote a word count to writers in order to establish basic parameters. At the other end of the spectrum a book of 80,000 to 100,000 words has significant heft, 320400 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. If using 12 point times or times roman font, its about 10 english words per line, on average.
In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers. The point is that the perpage count is an estimate that will average out over time, and its good enough for most purposes. Jun 27, 2019 a story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Ultimately, you can expect there to be roughly 300 words per page in a book you write as a whole. A 100 page book would be, then, about 25,000 words. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company.
Depending on your word processor and preferences the page count may vary slightly, but with typical margins and 12 point arial or times new roman font you should expect a similar number of pages. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. Oct 26, 2012 this is really great formula to write an e book in 30 days. All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as the. I have used some of the parts especially mind maps, but never put such a goal to write words daily with such a discipline. Yes, its possible to break this model by having lots of staccato dialog, or paragraphs that are more than 250 words long, but those are extreme cases. The historian by elizabeth kostova is around that size and it weighs in at 900 pages in paperback. Using this exercise, you should end up with a good idea of book length expectations for a novel like yours. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. May 07, 2018 right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words.
Word count signals to people what kind of book theyre dealing with. This number was significantly different from the average we had seen for the estimated print length that had been given in the product. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. When i use 12 font size it looks too big, i found size 10 gives me a better estimate. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. The average singlespaced document typed in 12point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending on your formatting. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. Multiply the average number of words per line by the number of lines on a full page. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word. At donald maasss breakout novel weeklong workshop, this question about word count was asked, and i default to donalds answer every time. These figures represent continuous words with no blank lines or breaks. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about.
The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. 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 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 books 50% of books have fewer words and 50% of books have more 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. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. Larger print, or smaller print, of course, and wider or narrower margins, can make that vary, depending.
Calculate book page count using word count for book design. The best thing is that we can be organized without losing our attention. For the larger, 6 x 9 trim size, would be about 300 words per page. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job.