Words per page typical novel

The average singlespaced document typed in 12point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending. 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. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, roald dahls charlie and the chocolate factory. All this relates to the standard paperback size book. 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. Thats approximately 300 pages of doublespaced type. But first youll want to know approximately how many pages your finished book will have. A 100 page book would be, then, about 25,000 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. A manuscript over 40,000 words is considered to be a novel. In a novel how many lines are one page and how many words are. 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. That being said you can usually assume about 250 words per a printed page.

A manuscript for a novel is typically 500 words per page if singlespaced. Thats really hard to say, books are usually measured by word count and not page count. The standard minimum is 50,000 words, and the average number for a fulllength novel peaks somewhere at 90,000, with around 250 words per page in published form. It kind of depends on how big the font is in the book, and how much is written on each page. Another reason to use these figures as a guide is that if you submit your mss to an agent or publisher stating what kind of story it is, i. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Another rule of thumb is you can get 250 to 300 words on a typeset page. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average.

Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a. Now that weve covered how many words are in a novel, its time to break it down even further by finding out the ideal number of chapters in a novel and how many words are used in a typical chapter. Today, however, while the physical size of a book may still matter in a bookstore, ebooks have no dimensions. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. Jul 24, 2009 further measuring of books shows they have about 40 lines per page and around 10 words per line for fulllength lines as in, they go all the way across the page. Jun 27, 2019 a story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. All book publishers and book designers have a standard they go by to estimate page length. Because dialogue requires paragraph breaks, there will be fewer words than if you have a few pages of full paragraphs instead of dialogue. Tagged editing, fiction writing, how long should a scene be, how to write a novel, scene length, what is the best scene length, writing help. 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. How to format a novel 8 design fundamentals blurb blog. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot.

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. Writers digest recommends 80,000 to 89,999 words as a 100% safe range for literary, mainstream, womens, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller and horror. We need to count words if we are writing for a publication that asks us to stay within a set number of words. So 15,000 words would run to 288 pages, and 30,000 words would run to 576 pages. Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. If youre given a perpage rate, you can calculate a perword rate by assuming the industry standard of 250 words per page, e. The hunger games has 27 untitled chapters, and about 3700 words per chapter. 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. This means that a 75,000 word novel would be around 300 pages. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word. Different books and publishers have different layouts for their pages. All over america there are drawers crammed with manuscripts just started, halfway through, nearly done.

Therefore word counts were estimated based on a standard manuscript page using the standard format of double spaced typed pages with one inch margins, which was calculated at about 250 words per page. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Paperback books typically contain how many words per page. 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. A rough guideline or rule of thumb is to assume 250 words per page and that would make your book about 200 pages long. Today we write in word processors that can count words.

For an a4 page, this would be about 600 words per page. Larger print, or smaller print, of course, and wider. This is a story that is between 10,000 and 40,000 words. This gives you 200 large print, 500 for an academic book with 350 words per paperback page as a working average. How many words are there per page in a paperback novel. Between and 8000 words is a short story also, most short story competitions will stipulate their required word length for entry between 5000 and 10,000 words is a long short story. How many words per page are there in a typical novel. 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. You can feel it inside you but 50,000120,000 words is a lot of words. The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. If you want to know the word count and how many lines on a page of a particular novel you have. It has nothing to do with the number of pages in a published book.

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. May 14, 2018 with a track record to back them up, established writers have greater flexibility. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive. It only takes a quick scan of a handful of ebooks, say in the kindle store, to notice that the number of pages that constitutes an. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. However, i understand that the length of twilight is unusually long for a debut novel. May 07, 2018 this 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. Writing them needs a lot of time, a lot of heartache. This makes me wonder if publishers choose book sizes based on average scene length, to create the illusion of a certain pace. Armed with these word counts, i now have a range of lengths that have been proven popular. Collecting comp titles will prove useful to you throughout your novel s journeyespecially later, when trying to market your book.

Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference. My friend is a literary agent who mostly works with ya novels, but she told me recently that i should aim for about 75,000 words for my book, which im currently speccing out as a romance novel or maybe chicklit, depending on how the genrebending shakes out. If you want to calculate any other word count for a 4. Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. For the larger, 6 x 9 trim size, would be about 300 words per page. Also, the chapters are evenly divided into 3 titled parts. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. As previously discussed, there are different requirements for both fiction and nonfiction genres. That is because of font size used, size of page used, page breaks and possible illustration. Some editors charge a minimum fee for their services to cover the cost of their time and energy spent on a particular project in lieu of other work. A change of scene, a change of chapter seems to make sense to me.

Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. You can use word to count how many words you have written in a document. Long fiction is usually in the range of 70,000 words to 100,000 words and they lie in the range of 280 to 400 pages which matches the 250 word approximation. If youre given a per page rate, you can calculate a per word rate by assuming the industry standard of 250 words per page, e. In other words, a 12page story tends to be roughly 3000 words, etc. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle. We have compiled a list of the daily word counts of famous authors and what they had to say about writing every day what is a word count. 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. Pages come in many sizes and it often makes sense to opt for a larger page format to reduce the print costs. Hello, i was just wondering how many words the average novel has on a page. The figure was found through looking at a number of books text stats. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure.

Words counts of bestselling novels better novel project. Generally, there are 300 words per typed doublespaced page, using a 12 point font. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. How many words are there per page in a paperback novel answers. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Sep 11, 2008 hello, i was just wondering how many words the average novel has on a page. But while the length of a novel is to a large extent up to its writer, lengths may also vary by subgenre.

Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone is about 77,500 words total. How many words are there on one page of a novel answers. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. The hunger games uses 3,700word chapters, dividing each chapter into three parts.

On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. When the final work is printed for sale and published, the number of words per page will differ. Yes, exceptions for a first novel can be found, but writers who depend upon being the exception are. Dec 07, 2008 that is because of font size used, size of page used, page breaks and possible illustration. 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. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each paragraph is. Im curious about your advice compose the novel in the standard format from the start rather than changing it later why does this matter. Childrens books would have less words per page as they are bigger print, but. Go to a bookstore and support your fellow authors by purchasing these books, or check them out of the library. Hillsy said im always confused when it comes not so much to word count, but to word per page count. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. 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. 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.

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. Heres how 90,000 words which is 360 pages at 250 words per page breaks down by. 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. In other words, a 12 page story tends to be roughly 3000 words, etc. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. I understand that kicking out an 800 page novel 200000 words then is going to be an extra cost for a publisher and im not even gonna bitch about the sheer number of novels over 600 pages i have andor read ok i admit, they are pretty much all scifi and fantasy, dean koontz or stephen. Its a question often asked by aspiring authors wondering if their manuscript is several thousand words too long or short, but its also an intriguing one for readers to consider. Do check your comparable titles recent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range. When i write technical articles, theyre usually 600 words and about a. Each genre and subgenre has its own word count range. However, book length varies widely between genres, among authors, and based on the content of the book. 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. So a novel can do it, it just has to be so damned good you cant put it down, and thats rare. 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.

Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. 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. Roberts probably got lucky that someone took the time to give a first novel of length. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. Your guide to the world of wattpad by whatsawhizzer whatsawhizzer with 53,089 reads. Youve finished your manuscript or nearly finished it. Larger print, or smaller print, of course, and wider or narrower margins, can make that vary, depending. Every book is different and for any suggested word or page count you see, you are likely to encounter several popular fantasy books that are outside. I am writing a novel right now, and im up to 4025 words in 10. 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. Books can be as short as 25,000 words, around 100 pages, or as long as 3 million words, or about 1,000 pages. 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. Ultimately, you can expect there to be roughly 300 words per page in a book you write as a whole.

What do most writers see as a good average chapter length. On average, one doublespaced page has 250300 words. How to write your first romance novel guilty pleasures. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. Suggest you simply count to 100 remember to count all punctuation, spaces between words, etc on a representative page. Im presently working on a novel and want to make certain my. Murakami are 3 of my favorite recent books and all hover around 300,000 words. Now that weve covered how many words are in a novel, its time to break it down even further by finding out the ideal number of chapters in a novel and how many words are used in a typical chapter depending on the writing genre, word count in book chapters can vary considerably. What is the generally accepted number of words per page for a published novel. Depending on the writing genre, word count in book chapters can vary considerably. How to find how many words are in your novel so far. Of course, this depends on font size and style, double spaced and margin. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page.