Once you have a vision for your book small, standard, or wide formatyou can move on to the second step in deciding how many words you should write. Ultimately, you can expect there to be roughly 300 words per page in a book you write as a whole. 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. Pick a book that is average for the type of story you have written. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. A manuscript for a novel is typically 500 words per page if singlespaced. Books are printed in all different sizes some large, some small. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace. This is supposedly the worlds longest published novel at 2. And most middle grade novels are in the 20,000 to 40,000 range. Jan 08, 2018 now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. 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.
Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Using a standard font size, you can estimate about 250300 words per page. Hello, i was just wondering how many words the average novel has on a page. The average person can expect to spend 3 7 months writing a 200 page book if they focus on writing more than 1500 words per week. Even fox cutters estimate is 250 words per page isnt useful. If you havent designed your interior or will have gorham printing design it for you, the best way to estimate a rough page count is from a word count. If your book were to be published, the publisher would choose an appropriate size and place the appropriate number of words on each page. Learn how to estimate your page count and how long your book should be depending on your genre. Oct 25, 2018 when you embark on the journey of getting a book published theres a lot to consider and one of the things that should be on your priority list is how much youll be pricing your book for, which is a key piece of your book metadata. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Estimate your page count fiona raven book designer.
This standard was set in earlier times, when most manuscripts were prepared on. Wordprocessing programs have a function that calculates the number automatically, but the results are not reliable in the publishing world. Typing out a book using a word processor does not use the same format, font, or paper size as an actual published book. If you write more than 1500 words per week, you can expect for it to take 2 4 months to write a 100 page book. Most adult books are about 90,000 words, and no longer than 100,000 words unless youre jk rowling. 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. My next traditionally published book, the author training manual writers digest books, february 2014, was supposed to be around 50,000 wordsthats what i agreed to in my contract and what my publisher planned on when determining page count, design, expenses, profitandloss statement, etc. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot.
It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. So a 300 page manuscript will be roughly a 300page book. A picture book for preschool children that attempts to teach a basic concept. Then get just your arcs printed by amazon kindle direct publishing. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. This book has 144 pages, so it contains about 28,800 words. Aug 05, 2019 know what readers expect in terms of your genres word count even if the reader isnt aware of their expectations when it comes to how long a book is. This trim size is good for only 200 to 250 words per printed book page. It really depends on what font is used in the printed book. This means that you cannot fit many words on a printed page and. A good example is the wonderful little personalspiritual guide, the four agreements, by don miguel ruiz, which averages about 10 words per line x 20 lines per page 200 words per page. Most ebooks i see are double spaced, which makes their pages clearer but also reduces the number of words per page. This is an art rather than a science but here are a few tips.
Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. 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. With childrens books, they tend to choose a slightly bigger font than they do in adult books. The historian by elizabeth kostova is around that size and it weighs in at 900 pages in paperback. How many pages would my manuscript be in paperback. Sep 20, 2009 determine the average number of words per page. This type of information is very helpful to your book designer. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. Paperback books typically contain how many words per page. How many words per page varies depending on what font size and type, margins.
How many chapters will you need before you reach your target word count. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a. Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans. Using this exercise, you should end up with a good idea of book length expectations for a novel like yours. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Estimate your page count book designer fiona raven. If youre given a perpage rate, you can calculate a perword rate by assuming the industry standard of 250 words per page, e. Calculate book page count using word count for book design.
The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. I am writing a novel right now, and im up to 4025 words in 10. Apr 01, 2020 a 100 page book is about 30,000 words. Does it cost more to publish a hardcover novel or a paperback novel. 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. For a selfpublished book i think thats pretty good. This is another common question, and for most writers it should be easy to answer by using a word count feature in your writing tool. Because dialogue requires paragraph breaks, there will be fewer words than if you have a few pages of full paragraphs instead of dialogue. While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure. Youre writing your first novel, and you know you must shoot for around 80 to 95 thousand words. One factor can be measured, though, and that is the average page length of a book. Usually, this is about 400 for a standard academic book but only about 350 if the page size is demy octavo.
What will happen in each chapter, and how much has to happen before you move on to the next chapter. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. You must provide an accurate word count per page or by document when you are submitting a literary project. Mar 19, 2009 published books vary in words per page, depending on the publisher, the size of the book, what font they choose, etc. Moving to even a slightly larger page size can lower your page count and save printing costs. While chapter books often display one line drawing per chapter, they primarily use text to tell a story. All book publishers and book designers have a standard they go by to estimate page length. This would mean a book with 30,000 words would be roughly 120 pages. For example, childrens books are going to have fewer words per page than a book meant for adult readers.
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. According to scwbi society of childrens book writers and illustrators, early readers should be about 20 pages 5,000 words and chapter books should be from 4060 pages 1015,000 words. So if you write a 35,000 word manuscript, your formatted book will likely be around 140 pages. That will affect the number of words per page in a published book include. Tips from raven book design for writers estimating word counts. So that comes out to about 400 a page and then factor in the double spacing and you get to 250 or so. 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. You will probably find that its less expensive than printing at the local shop.
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. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. May 11, 2009 i have published three books which have been fairly successful. On average, a page of double spaced times new roman font 275 words one page. If youre trying to figure out how many pages your book will end up being, a page in a six by nine book which is a pretty standard size for a nonfiction book is about 250 words equals one page. And this ebook page length differs significantly depending on the book genre.
When the final work is printed for sale and published, the number of words per page will differ. When i write technical articles, theyre usually 600 words and about a page and a half. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Once you know what your book will be about, its time to start planning the structure of the story. 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 book s amazon sales page. This type of book should not go more than 200 pages, so 40,000 words is probably your max.
How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. This is because these programs only count actual words, but publishers. If youre concerned about the final page count for your book, you should know that the average 6. I would expect typical text whatever that is set in 12 point times new roman to contain approximately 600 words 4000 characters per page. So a 400 page manuscript would be about 240,000 words. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. Determine the approximate number of words per page. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. On the spreadsheet, the editors total cost will be automatically calculated once you insert your total word count and the editors perword rate. Know what readers expect in terms of your genres word count even if the reader isnt aware of their expectations when it comes to how long a book is. Or, if your book is slimmer than youd hoped, you can choose a smaller page size, a larger font size, and a paragraph style which adds more generous spacing and more pages to your book. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. The typical book s words per page count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250.
1067 442 387 1530 1032 313 718 984 995 857 732 324 893 758 1325 300 183 1104 944 1250 249 65 51 1462 184 612 1153 1408 1113 268 1103 171 1360 1244 1218 1446 822 1487 799 1125 216