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. In any of these books, some chapters are longer than others. But chapter word count is something that you want to keep in mind for future edits. How many pages would my manuscript be in paperback. Aug 09, 2017 some freelance editors charge by the word. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has an average of 4,560 words per chapter. This type of information is very helpful to your book designer. An average doublespaced manuscript page has about 250 words on it. Just enter a number of words or paste your text, choose the formatting you need, and get the estimated number of pages your essay will take. Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans. How many words per page varies depending on what font size and type.
And most middle grade novels are in the 20,000 to 40,000 range. Ford, glen book length average length of a non fiction book. The kindle unlimited problem it cant count words or pages. These books are for readers between the ages of 6 and 10 and can have as many as 3,500 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. I received a request awhile ago to do a post on word counts for different age categories in childrens lit. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. This reduction will be very small, like maybe 12 lines less per page, and 510 pages less for the book. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done.
Using amazons number of words as a guide, 5,000 words would equal 26. Moving to even a slightly larger page size can lower your page count and save printing costs. This will give you a rough estimate of the word count. Id guess that the actual average number of words in a novel was somewhere.
The word count at big five publishers had a slightly narrower range. Multiply the average number of words per line by the number of lines on a full page. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. Some will tell you 2,500 words is the average, while. For example, childrens books are going to have fewer words per page than a book meant for adult readers.
Most middle grade novels are between 40,000 and 69,000 words long. Our book page count calculator will help you figure out how many pages your final book will contain based off of our your current word count. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line. Larger print, or smaller print, of course, and wider or narrower margins, can make that vary, depending. In other words, a 12 page story tends to be roughly 3000 words, etc. 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. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page.
The typical book s words per page count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. Typically, fiction uses 250 words per page, although 300 is also a common value. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. Any suggestions would be most welcome and appreciated.
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. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a.
Mar 08, 2012 i have been asked to edit a 65,000word210 page book and, even though i taught english for over 40 years and had two books published using the inhouse editor, i have no idea how much or how to charge i. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. 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. Fifty thousand words isnt that much divided into five days a week for a year. Bestselling books show us what the public likes, and of course, were hoping that our own novels will be liked by the public.
According to scwbi society of childrens book writers and illustrators, early readers should be about 20 pages 5,000 words and chapter books should be from 4060 pages 1015,000 words. On average, one doublespaced page has 250300 words. Writing middle grade a look at the numbers hannah holt. Even if your kindle book is live on amazon, you may still take it down from the shelf, improve it to the new and expanded version and relaunch your book into the market again at any time. Further, that font and size will put 49 singlespaced lines on a page. Jun 07, 2017 when talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. I was scared that agents would reject my book simply because i had got the length wrong. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. As pointed out in the axis labels, the horizontal x axis represents chapter length in words, and the y axis represents how many times throughout the books a chapter of that length occurred. Usually, this is about 400 for a standard academic book but only about 350 if the page size is demy octavo.
You can write as short or as extended a chapter as you want, with as many scenes in each that you want. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. However, some pages have a different number of lines and some lines have a different number of words. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. Most middle grade novels are not pitched as a series. 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. If you want to calculate any other word count for a 4. This is an art rather than a science but here are a few tips. Once you have a vision for your book small, standard, or wide formatyou can move on to the second step in deciding how many words you should write. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. Amazon cannot count the kindle words per page readers read, the number of pages readers flip, or the time readers spend on reading an ebook. The formatting for a book containing such elements means the word count will differ.
The hunger games uses 3,700word chapters, dividing each chapter into three parts. Convert words to pages with our free word counter tool. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. No more than 90,000 words seems to be the editors mantra these days. If you want to know the total word count for your document, then multiply this number by the number of pages it contains. So a 300 page manuscript will be roughly a 300 page book. So 15,000 words would run to 288 pages, and 30,000 words would run to 576 pages. 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.
Nonfiction typically has longer sentences and less white space because it doesnt have dialogue. Multiply up by the number of pages and get to a rough word count. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace. Estimate a small reduction for the lines per page and the numberofpages values.
I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. Feb 26, 2008 each page one sided in novel format averages 250 words. Having a too short or too long kindle book isnt a permanent irreversible mistake on selfpublishing on amazon. 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 average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of. Aug 05, 2019 if youre thinking bigger and wondering, for example, how many pages is 50,000 words, simply divide your target word count 50,000 by 500 since thats the average words per page. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. So a 300 page manuscript will be roughly a 300page book. 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. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length.
For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. Generally a 50,000 word novel would be the minimum word count. May 07, 2018 right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Most ebooks i see are double spaced, which makes their pages clearer but also reduces the number of words per page. To fill a page in word, you would need around 500 words, 1. Traditional publishers and agents advised using the industry formula for determining word count, which is assuming certain standards 12 pt. The average singlespaced document typed in 12point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending on your formatting. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page. The bestselling creativity guide which i edited, the artists way, is one of the shining examples of this wide format book. This estimate will vary depending on the typeface, point size, and. When i write technical articles, theyre usually 600 words and about a page and a half.
The average singlespaced document typed in 12point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending on. 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. I just counted 38 lines averaging 12 words per line, which, of course is 456. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. 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.
Use this converter to calculate how many pages a certain number of words is. 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. 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. All book publishers and book designers have a standard they go by to estimate page length. Whether or not a book has more or less words per page depends on the layout, the physical size of the pages, the linespacing, the length of paragraphs, and the size of the font.
Estimate a small reduction for the lines per page and the numberof pages values. In 2017, the downward trend has continued, with an average book length of 273 pages. While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure. I am writing a novel right now, and im up to 4025 words in 10.
Paperback books typically contain how many words per page. Estimate your page count book designer fiona raven. The chapters are short and simple with only an illustration or two per chapter. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. Many category editors find it easier to judge the length of a book in the way theyve always done. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. Your choice of trim size will also assert a ripple effect on most aspects of your book s interior. I actually remember this perhaps incorrectly from an episode of the tv series castle. Times new roman, doublespaced, leftside justified only, 1. Using this exercise, you should end up with a good idea of book length expectations for a novel like yours.
Ultimately, you can expect there to be roughly 300 words per page in a book you write as a whole. Hello, i was just wondering how many words the average novel has on a page. On average there are 233 words per page for a nonfiction book and 280 words per page for a fiction book on amazon. Books can be as short as 25,000 words, around 100 pages, or as long as 3 million words, or about 1,000 pages. 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. 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. The 5 x 8 trim size means about 250 words per page. Im curious about your advice compose the novel in the standard format from the start rather than changing it later why does this matter. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average.
The page doublespaced on the right fills less than half the page. Because dialogue requires paragraph breaks, there will be fewer words than if you have a few pages of full paragraphs instead of dialogue. The most accurate results are shown for academic essays with four paragraphs per page and no headings or subheadings. Heres how pavita singh of pavedita in palo alto, california, breaks down costs for editing services based on word count and type of editing. The figure was found through looking at a number of books text stats. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference. I have a few books with varying numbers of words in them. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. Divide the result by 10 to find the average number of words per line. Casey, as always youve provided excellent information through great research. 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. A 100 page book would be, then, about 25,000 words.
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 name a few. So, with all of this in mind, is there actually an average word count you should aim for. Lets look at some chapter lengths, but remember that these are averages. Or, if your book is slimmer than youd hoped, you can choose a smaller page size, a larger font size, and a paragraph style which adds more generous spacing and more pages to your book. For the larger, 6 x 9 trim size, would be about 300 words per page.
Children often read these books completely on their own. The red vertical intercept here represents the series average chapter length, which is around 6,000 words. The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. So that comes out to about 400 a page and then factor in the double spacing and you get to 250 or so. How many words per page are there in a typical novel.