Unfortunately, they dont offer word count so ive created an algorithm based on the number of pages, genre, and the dimensions of the book. Depending on your genre, having too many or too little can not only hurt your book sales, but also cause fewer 5star. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. Add screenshots or other graphics and youve got a nicesized ebook.
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. 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. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable. And conversely, a longer book of over 60k words or 200 pages can command a higher price. When talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. 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. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. My own past research on ya word count turned up 5080,000 as an average guideline. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 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. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. For example, memoirs are generally 80,000 to 90,00 words. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a wordcount guideline. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. This is due in large part to the variety of subgenres within it and the trend for a book series with an ever greater word count. And a typical howto nonfiction book might need between 7 and 12. 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. Jul 24, 2009 my upperlevel ya novel is 211 pages, 61,078 words, tnr 12 pt. When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words. 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. Can be publisher specific, ranging from 3,000 to absolute max 5,000. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for non fiction books.
According to chuck sambuchino see below for word count. The first book in each series below was the authors first. Ive just about finished a nonfiction book about little known young and other heroes of the american. The word counts of some famous novels for comparison. Coyne uses the nanowrimo wordcount length of 50,000 words for his examples, calling 50,000 words a good foundation to build upon. How many words should be in an adult nonfiction book. Sep 06, 2016 some of the other answers are idiosyncratic. Increase your font size and your leading the space between lines of text if this is the case.
A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. First time authors should steer clear of writing anything over 80,000 words. I use amazons data feeds to come up with the calculation. A non fiction book attractive to publishers of bestsellers starts at around 75,000 words. Now the decisions can be made based on your writing and whether your book is a fit for that publishing house. So if you write a 35,000 word manuscript, your formatted book will likely be around 140 pages. I get a lot of questions about word count for urban fiction novels. A good way to gauge appropriate length is to check out similar books for comparison.
Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. So 50,000 words is the minimum for a nonfiction book. There is no definitive word count guide for nonfiction books due to the many subgenres. Middle grade is from 20,000 55,000, depending on the subject matter and age range, and the word count of these books has been trending up in recent years. If youre writing a nonfiction book, be sure to look up that category to find the length of similar books.
Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. What is the ideal word count for a nonfiction book in the. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. What occurred to me while reading was how the predetermined word counts make it more difficult to query a novel that crosses categories. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words.
But for mainstream ya it is always best to stick to under 80k. The most important thing here is to realize that there are always exceptions to these rules. Apr 07, 2014 if youre concerned about the final page count for your book, you should know that the average 6. A word count guide for 18 book genres, including fiction. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff.
Generally speaking, a shorter book of 150 finished pages or 40k words or less typically commands a lower price. 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. Good typesetting will make the book more legible, easyontheeye and be superbly suited to the genre and context of the book. Choosing the font size for your book typography tips. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. 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. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. However, many authors, frustrated with the low price of ebooks, have taken to writing ebooks that are between 40,000 and 50,000.
A typical nonfiction book ranges between 55,000 and 80,000 words. If the content is stepbystep and high quality, 15 pages is enough for a 99 cent kindle book or a freebie used for lead generation. Aug 15, 2019 average word count for this book genre. There are a few book word count guidelines for each genre, but these arent hard and fast rules. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. If your manuscript is on the short side, make this clear when pitching to a publisher and give solid. And man, people love to point out exceptionsand they always will. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. I believe that non fiction have longer word counts. Know your content, know your mainline pitch and some.
I heard 10,000 words can be accepted as an ebook at a short length at least for nonfiction. Yet any piece of fiction climbing over the 110,000 word mark also tends to give editors. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. A recommended wordcount might be 15002000 words but, more. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle.
Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. How to set the retail price for your nonfiction book. Generally speaking, traditional publishers expect completed nonfiction book manuscripts to be between 50,000 to 75,000 words. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. If your book falls within the standard preferred wordcount range, its one less reason for it to be rejected. Urban fiction publishing requirements urban fiction news. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. 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. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word. Now the decisions can be made based on your writing and. Sep 09, 2012 word count i get a lot of questions about word count for urban fiction novels.
The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. Alternatively, this is an acceptable length for a short work of nonfiction. The actual word count for the hunger games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 94,743 words. 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. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. You would be wise to come close to these suggested. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is. I advise authors to ignore word counts when writing. In 2011, the average length of a bestselling nonfiction book was 467 pages, but that dropped to 273 pages in 2017. As a nonfiction writer myself, i know this is tough. 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 pages.
Books in this genre are also often gag gifts or are meant to be facetious. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Typesetting is an unsung hero in the publishing world. When you read a book that has highquality typesetting, you probably wont even notice it.
Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing stack. If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book category. 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. A nonfiction book attractive to publishers of bestsellers starts at around 75,000 words. 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. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different.
Alternatively, this is an acceptable length for a short work of non fiction. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. Rowlings recordbreaking series began with two titles on the high end of that spectrum and finished with five that left the guidelines in the dust. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. Do you want to publish a wide format bookwith inspiring quotes down the side margins. My upperlevel ya novel is 211 pages, 61,078 words, tnr 12 pt.
As for non fiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Sep 30, 2015 if the books short, a publisher might want to increase the number of pages to make the book look fatter, and therefore appear to be of higher value to a browser. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is the quality of your manuscript. I heard 10,000 words can be accepted as an e book at a short length at least for non fiction. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. 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. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. By 2017, however, that number has dropped to 273 pages. Font size is the most crucial factor in typesetting a book, but it can. Theres nothing worse than a nonfiction book that doesnt engage the. 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 have written a nonfiction book and want to know if you are hitting the wordcount 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. Most print publishers prefer a minimum word count of around 70,000 words for a first novel, and some even hesitate for any work shorter than 80,000.
A word count guide for 18 book genres, including fiction and non. If your book is too long and you need to cut it, dont fret. The retail price you set for your book impacts your profit margin. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. 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. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a word count guideline. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. If youre working on a novellength book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least but its better to aim for 90,000. 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.
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