Paperback book word count

Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. This gives you 200 large print, 500 for an academic book with 350 words per paperback page as a working average. Word count for picture books the standard is text for 32 pages. I created this website to help you better gauge your books word count, because the more examples you see and the more advice you read, the more confident youll be. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212. If you want to experiment with book sizes and the way they might impact your typesetting choices, the reedsy book editor allows you to do so for free. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless.

List of book sizes standard sizes for all different self. Step 4 is measure your manuscript in word count, not pages. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Other factors that will affect the number of words per page in a published book include. In the apply to list, select whole document and click ok. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and.

Understanding book layouts and page margins joel, thanks a ton for all of your info. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. 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 layout tab, in the page setup group, click margins. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. I think the fewest words i have in a book is about 15,000. Have you had lots of questions over the years about words mirrored margins. 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. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. So, a 55,000word manuscript is about 220 typeset pages, and a.

How many pages would my manuscript be in paperback. If i were to ask you how long your book is, and you answer that it is 225 manuscript pages, i am still not clear. In this post, id like to share some thoughts on word count considerations. That includes scenes like the hero at the mercy of the villain, but. Enter your books trim size into the width and height fields. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words.

Do check your comparable titlesrecent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range. For instance, when a reader picks up a thriller, they have certain expectations of what theyre about to read. Heres how the wordcount of your book will decide what category your masterpiece falls in. Most are published on cheap paper, about the same quality as a mass market paperback what youd find in the grocery store checkout aisle. Nonfiction standard nonfiction business, political science, psychology, history, etc. 99 price point wont cover my costs on the paperbacks. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. Book spine calculator book thickness calculator what. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. But that contract is dependent upon the books genre. Having some reallife examples at your side, you should get a better sense of.

Some books cannot have printing on the spine of the book because they are not thick enough and the type will be too small to read. 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. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. And, truth be told, early readers and chapter books are not lucrative for publishers. 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. The size of the font often used in paperback novels commonly ranges from 10pt to 14pt. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. You can use the preset styles in microsoft word or modify them for a custom look. Should you go with the average book size for your genre, or should you base your decision on your books word count and go with the size that will cost the least to print.

So, with only a few edits, the question and answer about word counts question. We explain two easy methods to estimate your books page count. All perfect bound paperback books and hardcover books have a spine. I have learned from this to plan shorter books in the future. So, do a word count with a word processor, then divide by 250 to get the number of standard pages.

The editor also provides four popular trim sizes for formatting 4. Amazon makes it very simple to format a paperback book for publication, and the process is absolutely free. 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. A higher word count will make a book with a small trim size too bulky and uncomfortable to hold. The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275 an. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. I have 15 books selling in the amazon kindle store of varying lengths.

For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. 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. Word count can be obtained in microsoft word under the tools menu.

Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Factors such as numbers of images in the book and amount of chapters make it difficult to pinpoint. A reader of the editors blog asked about word count for novels and although i answered the question on the blog article where it was posed, i thought other writers might have the same concern. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. How to format a paperback book in ms word for amazon kdp. The number of words in a novel will vary depending on the genre. Each genre and subgenre has its own word count range. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. I received a request awhile ago to do a post on word counts for different age categories in childrens lit. However, i have a completed novel the result of twelve years fulltime work, trial by depth in the grindstone tavern, set in the dutch east indies in 1674. Search for word count totals in books word counters.

A books word count does matter and if you get it wrong. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Writing too many words in your novel is just as embarrassing as not writing enough. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction.

There is no guarantee your book will fit neatly into the projections below, but it will help you to obtain a ballpark figure. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876. Thats really hard to say, books are usually measured by word count and not page count. I just laid out a 65,000word book and it ended up, with a couple pages of photos and a few pages of appendix, at 268 pages the pages in the main body of the text are numbered up to 237. At an average of 250 words per paperback page it would be 200 pages.

Since the paperback is going away, lets look at more realistic lengths for books. This resizes your pages and changes your page count, which you need to know for setting your margins. Im concerned because the word count is around 1,000 words. As you can see, you need to know your word count, not the number of pages your word processor produces.

Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. These were to do with whether the book would be categorised as a novel or a novella or an epic or something else. 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. 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. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. For example, the plagues of night ebook has 334 pages, while the ppb has 400 pages, the first kate daniels book, magic bites, has 205pg in ebook, and the ppb has 272.

For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Build your book format a paperback manuscript word for. For help formatting your paperback manuscript, see our guides for microsoft word for windows, microsoft word for mac and pages for mac. Should writers worry about word count the editors blog. The best word count for your selfpublished novel self. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. How to write early readers, easy chapter books, and. 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.

Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and. This 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline.

The thicker the book, the bigger the spine copy can be. Most book spines will have the title and authors name on the spine of the book. Word count matters because every book, regardless of genre, has an inherent contract with the reader. Learn how to estimate your page count and how long your book should be. Using styles also saves you time because you dont have to format the font and spacing for each part of your book. I was a middle school english teacher, so know i know mg pretty well, and i am going to say i think casey is pretty spot on. I love anything set in england, especially historical england, and the pace of the story, while incredibly fast, cuts to the point and leaves. Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words or characters are counted. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. Whether the book has pictures, charts, graphs, etc. Its currently in beta, but will soon be rolled out as completely live. How to use our book page count calculator select your word print size.

The formatting for a book containing such elements means the word count will differ from a book that has only words. These guidelines are intended for designers of paperbacks with black and white or color interiors, with fullcolor covers. Using the styles function in word can help you ensure your books font and spacing is consistent. Holmberg does a fantastic job of making her characters interesting and complex. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a. So, you have a finished book, and youre wanting to publish a paperback or hardback option for your readers. Estimate your page count book designer fiona raven. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Tucker max tucker has sold over 5 million books as a 4x nyt bestselling author and is the cofounder of scribe. 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.