Word count for book publishing

The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. Urban fiction publishing requirements urban fiction news. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. If you want to get a target for your nonfiction book, the best thing may be to look at a dozen or so. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the. Word count to book pages resources for independent authors. We explain two easy methods to estimate your books page. Y ou can determine an approximate number of book pages by filling in some. Chances are your cozy mystery or literary novel is not an epic. A higher word count will make a book with a small trim size too bulky and uncomfortable to hold. Rachelle also mentions that passing 100k in word count means its a more expensive book to producehence agents.

Never pad your manuscript just to meet a wordcount guideline. Everything you need to know about novel word counts. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. First, we recommend determining how many words your book should be. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Here are the average novel word counts in the top five genres in the book publishing industry in no particular order. The best word count for your selfpublished novel self. The whole project will be roughly 210,000 words before revisions close to a 500 page paperback.

For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Then on the next page, choose from the listed wordcount ranges and. I still have one more chapter to write and an epilogue to tie it all up. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. It takes the question of length completely off the table as an. How to write and publish early readers and chapter books. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. Book launch strategy and marketing plan to increase visibility and book sales. If you dont see the word count in the status bar, rightclick the status bar, then and click word count.

If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book. Following the submission guidelines for a publisher is critical. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. This article suggests that essentially, it should be as long as it needs to be, meaning dont look at the word count, just get the story out then. Word count matters more than it should in my opinion. Discover what size your book should be and if thats comparable to the standard book sizes in publishing. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been. Choose your book type, genre, and audience for a word count and page number total. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. A guide to word counts filles vertes publishing, llc. If your book falls within the standard preferred wordcount range, its one less reason for it to be rejected. Rose as an editor, i cant tell you how many times ive turned down a manuscript because of excessive word counts.

Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. However, if you intend to use the excerpt as a standalone such as an entry in a devotional book or collection of stories, or the material you desire to use is a. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. I get a lot of questions about word count for urban. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a. If you are ready to get started, click the button below. In these cases, the overall design of the book determines the publishing costs more than word count. Search for word count totals in books word counters. That tells the publisher what their price per unit cost will be, and that. As a nonfiction writer myself, i know this is tough. But at the end of the day, you have to write the novel you want to write. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Browse other questions tagged publishing technicalwriting wordcount revision scientificpublishing or.

Why word count matters when you submit your book the. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. What is the minimum word count for kindle direct publishing. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as the definitive word count you must reach in your book. Step 4 is measure your manuscript in word count, not pages. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. As you can see, you need to know your word count, not the number of pages your word processor produces. For a few examples, lets start on the low end of word count where we have the great gatsby clocking in at. While average word length is 50,000 to 80,000 words, this genre has so much variety that word count depends on the book and its intended audience. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. How to write early readers, easy chapter books, and. What counts as a word when dealing with a word limit. Many publishers have trim size requirements based on word count, or you can browse bestseller lists for guidance.

Using the styles function in word can help you ensure your books font and spacing is consistent. There have been rumors over the years that amazon has one, usually because some authors short book was removed. 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. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. First and foremost, word count matters because it matters to publishers. Yes, you should go through the novel revision checklist and take out anything extraneous no matter what. Permission policies and information baker publishing group. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Information on writing and publishing in the early reader and chapter book market. Yes, having a book that is overly short or overly long for its genre will incrementally decrease your odds of finding traditional publication. Trim size is the publishing term for book size specifically the dimensions used for each page of your book.

And i believe pams book is good enough to one day be in that category. The publisher mechanically trims the pages to make sure theyll all be uniform in size. Word count is important in the formula that book formatters and printers use to determine page length. As far as ive ever seen, amazon has never posted a minimum word count requirement. As a reader i love the huge word count novels steven king has written and the very short. 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. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. Build your book format a paperback manuscript word for. You can use the preset styles in microsoft word or modify them for a custom look. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. List of book sizes standard sizes for all different self.