Book lengths in words

Jun 07, 2017 in my opinion, if your nonfiction book is fewer than about 30,000 words 120 pages, it does not feel substantial enough to be real book. Word count signals to people what kind of book theyre dealing with. 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. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. May 11, 2009 word count and book length one of my biggest problems as a publisher is having authors deliver more than was agreed to. Middlegrade novels are generally 20,000 to 55,000 words. Also, heres another list i may swipe and add in here. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. Middle grade novels heres where youre going to see a big spread, too but a good minimum goal is around 3035,000 words.

I have 15 books selling in the amazon kindle store of varying lengths. Write a program to print a histogram of the length of words in its input. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. May 14, 2018 readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. Words to pages book size each publisher usually has a formula for determining the number of words per manuscript page and how that translates into words per printed page for that particular publishers templates, but a given formula wont necessarily be accurate in relation to books published by a different publisher. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. If you know how long the book is, you can divide it into eighths to find the perfect timing for all your major turning points. Although the length of fiction is genredependent to an extent fantasy novels, for example, tend to be on the thicker side, sticking to the ideal novel length is still the best advice. One of the questions that a new writer often asks is how long should my book be. 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.

Search for a book, tell us how fast you read, and start reading. The golden extent for many publishers is 288 pages about 90100,000 words without tables or figures. The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of. If you dont know how to find your documents word count, this article shows you how. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. This makes me wonder if publishers choose book sizes based on average scene length, to create the illusion of a certain pace. Print a histogram based on word lengths c stack overflow. Smiley lists novels as typically being between 100,000 and 175,000 words, while national novel writing month requires its novels to be at least 50,000 words. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Novels intended for the adult market will be longer than those targeted at children and young adults. At the other end of the spectrum a book of 80,000 to 100,000 words has significant heft, 320400 pages. But its not that uncommon to see novels that exceed this. Heres a guide to the recommended lengths for genre books.

However, paranormal and ya fantasy books appear to remain largely in the 80120,000 range, with books targeted at children or younger teenagers sometimes dipping to 5070,000. Ive put together word counts for every book of the bible. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. In fact, the majority of printed books are turned into ebooks.

However sometimes, like today, the reverse happens. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing. I used the lexham hebrew bible and the nestlealand novum testamentum graece for these word counts. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time. Sep 20, 2009 how to calculate book length in an earlier post i discussed broad issues relating to word count and book length but didnt actually explain how the length of a book is calculated. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. You might find your story strengthening as the excess words drop off. If you are an author of a book or know of a books accurate wordcount, contact me. Books with much shorter sections become bestsellers all the time. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel. 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. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. Does this mean that every chapter must end up somewhere in this range.

Jan 08, 2018 you can see there is a lot of variation in word length, especially in epic high fantasy, where books can stretch beyond 200,000 words or sink as low as 50,000. In terms of adult mainstream fiction, that length would be considered a novella. These numbers are pulled from the original languages using logos bible softwareyou can see how i did it below. Since the paperback is going away, lets look at more realistic lengths for books. Oct 10, 2016 genre has more influence on book length than you might think. Unfortunately, they dont offer word count so ive created an algorithm based on the number of pages, genre, and the dimensions of the book. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. According to amazon s great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many.

By the way, if you want to know what i think of logos. Publishers are sticking with their word count lengths, but in the wild west that is the publishing marketplace right now, the idea word count is largely up for grabs. That said, each manuscript should be long enough to adequately tell its story or. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. Word lengths appear to be a bit looser here in australia ive seen books for 9 year olds these books would require very good reading skills, i guess up to 60,000 words. 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. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. Rich olsonchildrens book illustrator this is a good breakdown of the childrens book categories. The word counts of some famous novels for comparison. Different kinds of books should be a different length. Find out how long it will take you to read any book by using our book word count search. 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. A typical popular business book runs 25,000 to 75,000 words. Apr 23, 2018 few elements of the bookwriting process inspire such handwringing and teethgnashing as trying to constrain your novel within certain seemingly arbitrary bounds.

Jul 23, 2012 so 50,000 words is the minimum for a nonfiction book. This very abbreviated story is often difficult to write, and even harder to write well, but the markets for micro fiction are becoming increasingly popular in recent. Over that size is the territory of the academic or technical business book. I hope this helps you be more informed about word count in the publishing industry, but the rule is. 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. This video explains why word count is important and the. But because time sometimes slows down or speeds up when were engrossed in a good story, its very hard to compare the length of different. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. 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%. Chapter book this varies widely, depending on grade and reader level, usually starting at 4,000 words and 15,000 words max. Put simply, anything less than 70,000 words or over 110,000 might make publishers think twice before accepting it.

Then consider writing a manuscript of similar length. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. Search for word count totals in books word counters.

Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Conversely, when we write epic length chapters 10,000 words long, theres nowhere to pause. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Because yes, different types of books require different book lengths. However, there are certain word lengths that most editors prefer to see when submitting work. Nov, 2009 nonfiction picture book 3,000 words max, but closer to 1,000 to 2,000 words. This is useful for all writers to make sure they are hitting their appropriate market. Here is an approximate guideline for story lengths.

The graphic looks at the length of some famous novels, poems, and plays from literary history. I was scared that agents would reject my book simply because i had got the length wrong. Novelist jane smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel. But while the length of a novel is to a large extent up to its writer, lengths may also vary by subgenre. I think the fewest words i have in a book is about 15,000. However, many authors, frustrated with the low price of ebooks, have taken to writing ebooks that are between 40,000 and 50,000. How to calculate your books length before writing helping. Synonyms for book at with free online thesaurus, antonyms, and definitions. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and novels and memoirs and childrens novels and picture books. With that in mind, ive tried to put together the definitive post on word count for fiction novels, young adult, middle grade, childrens. Lets take a quick tour of copy fitting, casting off and related issues here.

Sep 20, 2019 how many words in a novel vary depending on genre, audience, and the story itself but in general, the average words in a novel is between 60,000 and 90,000 words for most genres. Length matters less for ebooks than it does for print books, but there are some acceptable lengths and norms that are still a concern. Teen novels your minimum target will be slightly higher, starting from 40,000 and up. Word counts of the most popular books in the world foster grant uk. If you analyse the contents of a typical bookshelf in an academic library, you will notice that many of the books are between 272 and 320 pages in length. Mar 20, 2020 an ebook could be 3,000 words or as long as a fulllength book. Oct 18, 2017 from these numbers, we can establish some guidelines. Depending on your genre, having too many or too little can not only hurt your book sales, but also cause fewer 5star. A young adult novel will run between 20,000 and 40,000 words. Word count for novels and books is something i dont think about too often until i travel to a writers conference, and then someone asks a simple, innocent question.

It makes quite a difference whether you want to publish a childrens picture book, a 50recipe smoothie book, a science fiction novel or a technical encyclopedia. I have never, nor will i ever, force a book to be longer just for the sake of word count. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Times new roman, doublespaced, leftside justified only, 1. It is easy to draw the histogram with bars horizontal.

When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. 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. Each of my books is the length i needed to tell that characters story. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference.