All of these costs can be drastically reduced by a writer demonstrating a professional respect for the guidelines outlined below. Our word count guide answers these questions and more. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. But i understand your point that it would be better to have a lower word count from the start, thus increasing your chances of acceptance. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word. My next traditionally published book, the author training manual writers digest books, february 2014, was supposed to be around 50,000 words thats what i agreed to in my contract and what my publisher planned on when determining page count, design, expenses, profitandloss statement, etc. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is the quality of your manuscript. The best thing that you can do is look over comparable books and try to judge word count by their size, average words page, and illustration content. And man, people love to point out exceptionsand they always will. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. But, most nonfiction publishers want to be sold the concept, and therefore be able to discuss the direction of the project, before you write the book.
Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. It costs time and money to have an editor work scrupulously with an author to condense their book down to an acceptable word count. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. As long as you have said everything you want to say, and nothing that you dont, then your nonfiction book is already the perfect length. Mar 20, 2020 a plan for your book that includes a word count helps you not write too little or too much. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. I heard 10,000 words can be accepted as an e book at a short length at least for non fiction. The total word and page count will vary from book to book and is dependent on your writing and overall book formatting average time to write this book. 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. In contrast, word count is finite and usually i can calculate book length with about 99% accuracy in part because also included in any calculation is a count of figures, tables, etc.
The binding, font and paper size establish how many pages a published book will be. Generally speaking, traditional publishers expect completed nonfiction book manuscripts to be between 50,000 to 75,000 words. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. 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. While word count will certainly play a factor in value, it also wont be a makeorbreak factor when pricing your ebook. Word count is not the beall and endall of your book. Most traditional publishers will place restrictions on an author and require that the manuscript not exceed a specified word count, unless special concessions are made.
Now the decisions can be made based on your writing and whether your book is a fit for that publishing house. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. The left behind series original books, not including the prequel, 19952007 by tim lahaye and jerry b. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for non fiction books. Book size is often based on how thick the spine will be and how it will stand out in a bookstore although things are changing. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. It is the responsibility of the author to cast the vision for the book and project a word count and finished length. Jenkins started strongly but weakened, along with the.
Basically, having an idea of how long you want your book to be helps you work smarter, not harder. If youre writing a nonfiction book, be sure to look up that category to find the length of similar books. For nonfiction picture books ive even been advised to not go above 1500. Jul 23, 2012 so 50,000 words is the minimum for a non fiction book. They tend to be shorter with some having each chapterreading being only 300 words. It was the hobbit in 1937 although he had done a lot of nonfiction before that, and poetry. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916.
As a reader, ive never felt a good book was too long, even more than a thousand pages. Technically, in fiction, most publishers and awards consider anything over 40,000 words to be a novel, but many publishers wont look at anything under 60,000. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. As a nonfiction writer myself, i know this is tough.
If youre working on a novellength book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least but its better to aim for 90,000. That means your manuscript must be at least 3540,000 words long. Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Less than 70,000 unless fantasy scifi supernatural, which can be longer, max 90,000. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid.
Never pad your manuscript just to meet a word count guideline. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. A nonfiction book attractive to publishers of bestsellers starts at around 75,000 words. It turns out a better book in the end as well, which means your readers enjoy it moreand youll sell more copies. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. If you have written a nonfiction book and want to know if you are hitting the word count sweet spot, i suggest reading widely in your area to see what others are doing this will give you a better sense of what publishers and readers expectwant.
Sep 06, 2016 some of the other answers are idiosyncratic. If the word count is way over a general ballpark range, the writer must decide if all parts are essential to the main theme or if some pieces which, though interesting, could be eliminated because they dont really reinforce the main theme. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. Books that can be read by many ages are called crossover books. 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. However, i did use double spacing, ms word, and the correct paragraph indent. I guess 50,000 is a short novel and some early novels before goes as low as 40,000 which can be considered to be a novella. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876. It is feasible to count the number of words in a published chapter. Less than 100 pages and it becomes difficult for a printer to print the title of the book on the spine. When talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. It costs a great deal of money to actually bind books. Use your word processor to figure out your average word count per manuscript page and your total word count. As such, it generally requires more word count than a straight nonfiction book because it employs fiction techniques.
A one page cover letter or query letter is sufficient. A word count that is much higher than the average range tells the agent or editor your work probably needs to be tightened. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. If your book falls within the standard preferred wordcount range, its one less reason for it to be rejected. If your book is too long and you need to cut it, dont fret. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. Aug 15, 2019 average word count for this book genre.
However, if your manuscript significantly deviates from the guidelines, then every single extra word has to be essential to the story. A word count that is much lower than the acceptable range alerts the agent or editor that your novel or nonfiction book probably hasnt been adequately developed. Especially if your book is nonfiction and educates the reader such a book would be of higher value already, based on the return the reader would get from having read your book in. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. Ive been doing some research into epic fantasy word counts recently, especially to get an idea of debut novel figures over recent years. Still, there may be some bestsellers out there that are submitted at 115,000 words, and turned down for bad books that are exact. But, most non fiction publishers want to be sold the concept, and therefore be able to discuss the direction of the project, before you write the book. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. That number actually lines up pretty well with the data we have on this, but again, that number should neither be. The most important thing here is to realize that there are always exceptions to these rules.
What is the ideal word count for a nonfiction book in the. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. Almost always, high word count means that the writer simply did not edit their work down enough. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count.
Your nonfiction proposal should include the following items. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures. I have written a nonfiction novel and will need to reformat the manuscript. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. Is that a good length for your reader on this topic. I guess the word count doesnt matter so much, as long as you write good content and people feel they get their moneys worth. Having just returned from a meet the agent event, i would like to reiterate the point that all these word count guidelines are exactly that guidelines. The best thing that you can do is look over comparable books and try to judge word count by their size, average wordspage, and illustration content. If yes, then most publishers still work on specific word count lengths for books so youll probably be aiming for around 60,00080,000 words for nonfiction. Its often possible to take a good 30,000 words out of a book without really affecting the content, just by being rigorous about what works what words, sentences, paragraphs, scenes and chapters. Your chapter length has to work well with the overall word count of the book short chapters create an even distribution of both content and action. What writers fail to see is that for every successful exception to the rule e. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. To help you cast this vision, let me tell you that most standard 192page paperback books are about 40,000 to 50,000 words.
Well, different publishers look for different lengths for different genres. Do table of contents, appendices, and chapter titles count toward the total word count for a book. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. For example, if a book is 50,000 words, what is not included in the count. You wont get exact, but youre wondering whether 35k is reasonable, so you dont need exact. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. Jun 07, 2017 when talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. How many words should be in an adult nonfiction book. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count.
For example, memoirs are generally 80,000 to 90,00 words. Books in this genre are also often gag gifts or are meant to be facetious. As always, be sure to keep it interesting so you can justify the word length. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book category. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Your nonfiction proposal should include the following items and should be attached as a single file to an email with submission. Know your content, know your mainline pitch and some. The grandfather of modern christian fiction, in his steps by charles m. Average word count ranges from 70,000 to 100,000 words, although biographies of major celebrities or public figures can support a higher number. 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. Besides, with some editing the word count can come down. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle. If you plan to selfpublish the word count isnt so important, but agents and publishers talk about a sweet spot word count regarding fiction picture books, which i believe is around 500750 words.
Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. A typical nonfiction book ranges between 55,000 and 80,000 words. Shorter isnt necessarily better, but it can be an important consideration. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Take a good look at the average word counts you need for a novel or nonfiction. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. As a result, a 100k manuscript can size up very differently on a shelf. Step 5 is to target your writing so you will be on track for your books vision. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. If you can decide on the right vision for your book, and you therefore know your trim size, you can tailor your writing to your target. When you write nonfiction, practically anything goes and this is something to embrace, not to lose sleep over. Like novels, these books fall into the 70,000 to 120,000 word range.
As for non fiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book. The writer must determine the main theme of the memoir. Book length varies according to genre, but a print nonfiction book length averages 50,000 words and commercial fiction averages 80,000 110,000 words. Thanks for the reassurance that word count is not important, be results driven. Im always worried that my book is too brief, because my style of writing is so brief. 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. In contrast, word count is finite and usually i can calculate book length with about 99% accuracy in part because also included in any calculation is a count.
For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212. There is no definitive word count guide for nonfiction books due to the many subgenres. According to chuck sambuchino see below for word count. Indeed, most traditional publishers limit nonfiction authors to 80,000 words for standard 6 x 9 books, between 240 and 280 pages. If youd like some guidelines, you can assume that the average nonfiction book is 50k words, and that they have 12 chapters, so around 4k words would be an average chapter length. It takes the question of length completely off the table as an issue. A non fiction book attractive to publishers of bestsellers starts at around 75,000 words.
Recently an author proposed a 30,000 word book to a publisher. By 2017, however, that number has dropped to 273 pages. Im always confused when it comes not so much to word count, but to word per page count. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Page count is determined by the publisher, not the writer. The di vinci code 2003 by dan brown is 8,380 words christian book word count. This is about the length readers want for general nonfiction, and it keeps publishers happy given the high cost of paper. Many beginning writers are hesitant to give such a number because theyve never written a long book. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. On the other end, reference and academic books can have huge word counts. Coyne uses the nanowrimo wordcount length of 50,000 words for his examples, calling 50,000 words a good foundation to build upon. I believe that non fiction have longer word counts.
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