For example, if an author has to write a minimum or maximum amount of words for an article, essay, report, story, book, paper, you name it. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. I guess one thing im trying to say is word count is more than just an annoyance. Word counts for childrens books i received a request awhile ago to do a post on word counts for different age categories in childrens lit.
How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Line count governs length irrespective of whether the line contains one word or ten or twelve. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. In the apply to list, select whole document and click ok. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size. Jan 18, 2010 the average book on the planet is 65,000 words at 200 pages, which is pretty close to this method. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Well explain two easy methods to calculate book page count.
It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. This gives you 200 large print, 500 for an academic book with 350 words per paperback page as a working average. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. They are very similar fonts in appearance, but you get as much as a 20% difference in the word count per page. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. 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. In other words, its about figuring page space and not word count. So, do a word count with a word processor, then divide by 250 to get the number of standard pages. When talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. The book fold layout sets you up for printing your masterpiece automatically in the correct order, ready for folding and binding. The average book on the planet is 65,000 words at 200 pages, which is pretty close to this method. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. This resizes your pages and changes your page count, which you need to know for setting your margins.
Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Jun 30, 2008 each book page has approximately 200 words per page. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to. Assuming you use the standard conventions for manuscript format 1 margins, 25 doublespaced lines per page, and a 12 point nonproportional font like courier, then a good rule of thumb is one page equals 250 words. However, the drop in the overall average length of bestsellers over the last 7 years points to a marked. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. You can easily calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. Word count seems like a leftover from typewrited days. 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. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to be. Word count is what publishers will specify, not page count. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Count characters and words with the anycount tool for a precise estimate and get every single cent youve earned.
Word count to book pages resources for independent authors. Many of these books are written in rhyme or in a simple singsong meter that is catchy and fun. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. Using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. Build your book format a paperback manuscript word for. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Search for word count totals in books word counters. The number of characters, the number of subplots, the.
If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me. Word count is important in the formula that book formatters and printers use to determine page length. Nov 25, 2009 to speak to a bigger issue, artistically, it is rare for a first novel to truly need to be over 500 or less than 200 manuscript pages. Divide your final word count or the word count youre aiming for by 250 or 300 to arrive at your page count estimate. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. Just divide your wordcount by 200 to get how many pages you have so far. How many word document pages are there in a 350 page book. The book pages are determined by the trim size of the book, font and typeface, margins, illustrations, and line spacing. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. This isnt to say that long books are no longer succeeding. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. The answer is one page single spaced or two pages double. During the introductory month of the new system, the conversion of kenpc into the actual number of words in the book actual word count showed significant differences from one book to the other. You really cant measure by word document pages because description filled pages will have more words than a page with a lot of dialogue.
Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. Depending on the text formatting, a page word count may include from 200 large print up to 600 words academic book. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. That being said you can usually assume about 250 words per a printed page. Each book page has approximately 200 words per page. These figures represent continuous words with no blank lines or breaks. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. A small print encyclopedia can have 200,000 words in just under 400 pages of course, so type size and format matter but this is a rule of thumb given amazons removal. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. Just to keep in mind, the average one spaced page usually contains about 3000 characters or 500 words.
Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isnt novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much. Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit. The overview below provides an indication of the number of pages required based on font. But in general there are about 250300 words per page. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. I think it stands as the longest fantasy trilogy to date. Enter your books trim size into the width and height fields. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid.
Im currently on a book tour for my new 32page picture bookthe type of book that the internet, most agents, and editors typically say should be geared toward 48 yearolds. A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. 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. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. In north america, the standard used by editorial staff in figuring word count is 250 words per page, 10 words per line using a 12 pt. 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.
Use our handy table to discover how many pages a given word count yields, single or double spaced, in times new roman or arial 12 point font. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. This means that a 75,000 word novel would be around 300 pages. Popular under 200 pages books meet your next favorite book. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. While your perpage word count may change depending on choices made during your interior layout, this initial calculation is a good place to start. Assuming you use the standard conventions for manuscript format 1 margins, 25 doublespaced lines per page, and a 12 point nonproportional font like courier, then a good rule of thumb is one page equals 250 words for the mathimpaired, that means you multiply the number of. On the layout tab, in the page setup group, click size, and then select more paper sizes.
Word count tool this tool also reports the number of syllables, monosyllabic words, polysyllabic words, sentences, paragraphs, unique words, short words, long words. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. When you query a publisher, its customary to include your novels estimated word count. Different books and publishers have different layouts for their pages.
For the larger, 6 x 9 trim size, would be about 300 words per page. 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. To speak to a bigger issue, artistically, it is rare for a first novel to truly need to be over 500 or less than 200 manuscript pages. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. A 95,000 word bookeven by page countis a different story than a 70,000 word book. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. Y ou can determine an approximate number of book pages by filling in some simple math formulas. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. But 75% of our tour stops are engaging with kids ages 812, or grades 26. Jul 24, 2009 because a 200page book filled with short snappy dialogue is going to have far fewer words than a 200page book filled with long descriptive paragraphs. In practice you need to subtract 1520% from the page word total once the white space is taken into account. Look sometime at the different number of pages if you switch a piece between verdana and arial of the same font size.
Heres our word count guide for 18 different book genres. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. Whether you want to create a booklet for an event or print out an ambitious book project, consider using the prebuilt page settings for booklets that comes with word. This of course depends on what font size, line spacing and page margins you are using, but on average a word count of 250 words will yield around half a page single spaced and a whole page double spaced when set in either times new roman or arial at a 12 point font size. 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. Word count, with a little help from amazon alexis grant. If your first novel is longer than 500 pages, then you may want to ask yourself, for. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. Book printing costs for printondemand mill city press. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. In 2017, the downward trend has continued, with an average book length of 273 pages. Thats really hard to say, books are usually measured by word count and not page count.
So a 200 page novel would be around 55,000 60,000 words. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. I remember reading some westerns in high school and, if i. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. Perhaps the real answer is that the book is finished when the story is told and you are satisfied with it. If you are an author of a book or know of a books accurate wordcount, contact me. Enter your book s trim size into the width and height fields. This trim size is good for only 200 to 250 words per printed book page. May 11, 2009 word count seems like a leftover from typewrited days. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. Do you want to publish a wide format bookwith inspiring quotes down the side margins. Well, the answer is about one half page single spaced or one page double spaced.