Average number of words on a page in a book

No more than 90,000 words seems to be the editors mantra these days. Multiply the average number of words per line by the number of lines on a full page. 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. About how many words of that size are in your average 250 300 page book. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. So far, i have about 35,000 words typed for the book i plan to publish. The historian by elizabeth kostova is around that size and it weighs in at 900 pages in paperback. The average singlespaced document typed in 12point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending on your formatting. But i also know of others who have sold over 500,000 copies. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. Lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, roald dahls charlie and the chocolate factory. 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.

This is an art rather than a science but here are a few tips. Using amazons number of words as a guide, 5,000 words would equal. How many words are in the average 400 page novel answers. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. 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. I was looking online and most of the sources i found said the average number of words per novel page is 250, and the average words per book were 60,000120,000. A sample of five words was randomly selected from a 200page book. Paperback books typically contain how many words per page. This entry was posted on monday, may 11th, 2009 at 11. The average reading speed worldwide is 200 wpm words per minute and the average number of words per page of a book is 250. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel.

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. Do the math and you can finish a page in 1minute and 15seconds. The page doublespaced on the right fills less than half the page. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. Wikipedia suggests it is some 1 million words longer than the malazan book of the fallen, its chief competition for the honor omitting shared universe tales like those of mercedes. The best that can be said is that the average number of words on a page is 856525 342. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference. 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. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. Just to keep in mind, the average one spaced page usually contains about 3000 characters or 500 words.

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. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless. 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. Books range from several words to several thousand compare goodnight moon to the polar express. This is another common question, and for most writers it should be easy to answer by. Using this exercise, you should end up with a good idea of book length expectations for a novel like yours. The average word length of each of the 10 samples is given in the table. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. Weighing in at over 4 million words, the wheel of time is assuredly among the longest fantasy series out there, although reliable data on the matter is elusive. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Do this for several books in your niche to get a targeted range. You can use comparable, successful books as models to determine the length. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel.

Do the number of pages in an ebook differ from the number. In practice you need to subtract 1520% from the page word total once the white. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. How many words per page are there in a typical novel. Most ebooks i see are double spaced, which makes their pages clearer but also reduces the number of words per page. Now we have computers and word processing software.

On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. To fill a page in word, you would need around 500 words, 1. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically written for the category. These figures represent continuous words with no blank lines or breaks. 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. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time.

Multiply up by the number of pages and get to a rough word count. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. 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. Just remember, with so much diversity in nonfiction, you have even less of a reason to get hung up on length. Every category will have an average length, including childrens books, young adult, business books, etc.

Today, even after the introduction of what amazon calls version 2. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Count characters and words with the anycount tool for a precise estimate and get every single cent youve earned. What is the best estimate for the average word length in the whole book. The average number of letters of the five words was calculated. Reading 104 pages nonstop will take you only minutes or. Books for 7 to 9yearold readers would probably start at the 15,000 word mark, rarely going higher than 30,000 words. Mysteries and young adult books run between 40,000 and 80,000 words.

With longer books, you can get a rough count by adding up the number of words on an average page and multiplying by the total number of pages. The ebook is usually figured by however many page turns it will take you to get through the book in digital format. So that comes out to about 400 a page and then factor in the double spacing and you get to 250 or so. Return to writing for children printmobilefriendly version. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. I actually remember this perhaps incorrectly from an episode of the tv series castle. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. There are no hardandfast rules for the number of pages in a book. When i write technical articles, theyre usually 600 words and about a page and a half.

Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. To put these numbers in perspective, if you type with a font size of 10, you could. 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. Generally, your book needs to hit the mark of 40,000 words before it can be considered a novel. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. More important is whether or not your book reads like a picture book succinct, musical, pictorial. 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. 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 400 page manuscript would be about 240,000 words. While its not possible to take into all these factors when estimating how many words per page there will be for your writing. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the rss 2.

Be aware that the word average means that for every book that sells 15,000, there is one that sells 5,000. For example, if your book has about 20 chapters, you can put about. The print book has different page numbers because of font type and size. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. The average adult novel runs approximately 100,000 words while those in other categories run 80120,000 words. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. Divide the result by 10 to find the average number of words per line.

A rough guideline to start with would be 500010,000 words per book. The average words from 60,000 words to 200,000 or more words in a whole novel. A novelist of my acquaintance insists that the only way to estimate the number of words in a book is to multiply the number of pages by 250. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page.

While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure. Middle grade novels vary a lot, but a safe spot to aim for would be 30,000 words. A sample of five words was randomly selected from a 200. And for every book that sells 20,000, there is one that is a disaster. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. When the final work is printed for sale and published, the number of words per page will differ. Page number is a terrible way to estimate word count as it depends on the size of the pages, the font size, the font used spacing, leading etc. Targeted for 2 to 8yearold kids, this type of book typically has between 400 800 words. 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. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about. 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.

Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. That was the formula in the good old days when courier was the only typeface and typewriters were king. 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. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. 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. The 250wordsperpage rule is a copysetting estimate. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace. I know of an author with a very large publisher whose novel has sold only 1,087 copies in its lifetime. 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 have a few books with varying numbers of words in them. A manuscript for a novel is typically 500 words per page if singlespaced.

Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. I would expect typical text whatever that is set in 12 point times new roman to contain approximately 600 words 4000 characters per page. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. General rule of thumb is that a novel is 80k to 100k, but you can have 120k on larger novels. I remember reading some westerns in high school and, if i. Many category editors find it easier to judge the length of a book in the way theyve always done. Discover the average number of words on a page by counting the number of words on three randomly picked full pages distributed throughout the book. I thought the average for a midsized novel would be around. Depending on the text formatting, a page word count may include from 200 large print up to 600 words academic book. Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic.