Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers. Whether youre just curious about how many words are in these books or youre writing a book and want to compare the length of your novel to these famous tomes, then read on to find the word counts of famous books and series. Though the average word count of a chapter is around 2,000 5,000 words, it all depends on your story. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. 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. Try not to completely tether yourself to word counts. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. For novels specifically in the young adult genre, the typical range is between 55,000 79,999 words. Between the ages of four and eight, children have picture books read to them and also begin to read themselves. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. That was the formula in the good old days when courier was the only typeface and typewriters were king.
The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Word counts for chapter books and middle grade can range from 1,50030,000 or more. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes.
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 edit. Over time, the word count diminished and volume 8 the mark contained only 85,341 words, and the last volume, number 16 kingdom come, dwindled to 77,776 words. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. To save the time and effort of counting wordbyword, often a rule of thumb for the average number of words per line was used, such as 10 words per. 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 question came in as a reader comment on one of the earlier blog posts.
The stories should be easy to follow and have an average word count of 1,000 to 10,000 words, a range similar to an adult short story. Less than 70,000 unless fantasy scifi supernatural, which can be longer, max 90,000. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. What is the average number of actual words in comic books. Nicholas sparks word count popular novel word count. If you have 6 panels, stick to a maximum of 35 words per panel. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. On average, when writing a memoir should not exceed 90,000 words and that is a stretch when it comes to memoir word count. Longer word counts allowed for fantasy, scifi, paranormal, historical. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and. Generally a 50,000 word novel would be the minimum word count. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsperline. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876.
For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the. These numbers are pulled from the original languages using logos bible softwareyou can see how i did it below. Too many words are a warning sign that the author does not know how to write for the age group and that the book has not been edited seriously enough. However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres, check out the breakdown in the article.
By the way, if you want to know what i think of logos. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Word count is very important to writing books for young children. Books that can be read by many ages are called crossover books. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. There are plenty of books that purposefully play with the word counts of their chapters. Its a question often asked by aspiring authors wondering if their manuscript is several thousand words too long or short, but its also an intriguing one for readers to consider.
Most blogs and writer websites had the moreorless the same advice forget the length and the average word count of your novel. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212. Nicholas sparks word count the notebook 38,520 message in a bottle 92,760 a walk to remember 49,311 the rescue 100,916 a bend in the road 93,766 popular novel word count the worlds largest word count encyclopedia. Publishers know this and often wont even look at a book submission that is too long. The popular book the noticer 2009 by andy andrews barely breaks the novel barrier at 40,454 words without the readers guide that was added to pad the book. Calculate book page count using word count for book design.
However, book length varies widely between genres, among authors, and based on the content of the book. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Average word count in a book book editing services. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. The old fashioned way of estimating word count in physical books was to take 5 or 10 if you want random pages and actually count the words on each page. Search for word count totals in books word counters. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. We recommend memoirs be between 45,000 to 80,000 words in order to maintain intrigue and reduce intimidation. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. Youre writing your first novel, and you know you must shoot for around 80 to 95 thousand words.
Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage.
It was 333 words which tends to be lower then the average picture book. Word count for picture books the standard is text for 32 pages. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. One of my biggest problems as a publisher is having authors deliver more than was agreed to. Ive put together word counts for every book of the bible. This question about average word count was on my mind as well, when i started writing my book. 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.
For more information on word counts for childrens book, check out this post. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, around 45,000 words on average, and novels ten to be longer, around 80,000 words on average. If youre new to selfpublishing on amazon and wondering, just how much should i write for my kindle book. Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature.
Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to. Short novels in general hit around 40,000 to 60,000 words, but most publishers wont touch a novel below 60,000. And, in case youre wondering, here are the average word counts for other popular genres. Recently i got asked this question, what is the ideal length word count wise for my first book. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. Famous book series and novel word counts number of words. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Ya manuscripts can have a word count anywhere from 55k to 90k. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. Novelist jane smiley suggests that length is an important quality of the novel. A single novel can be longer, but once the length is above 110,000 words publishers may look at cutting it back, unless it is a particular kind of book books over the 110k word count are usually considered epics. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000word range. How many chapters will you need before you reach your target word count.
The average word count in a book is 60k to 100k words. But rules are made to be broken, and the most successful publishing phenomenon in history did just that. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. What is a good way to get the word count of a kindle book. If youve read our related article on how many words are in a novel youll recall that the typical word count for a novel according to is 80,000 to 109,000 words. Every book is different and for any suggested word or page count you see, you are likely to encounter several popular fantasy books that are outside. I used the lexham hebrew bible and the nestlealand novum testamentum graece for these word counts.
A novelist of my acquaintance insists that the only way to estimate the number of words in a book is to multiply the number of pages by 250. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Also remember because there are a bunch of new novel imprints opening their doors, a novella is 40k or less. Books can be as short as 25,000 words, around 100 pages, or as long as 3 million words, or about 1,000 pages. Chapter books will come in at the lower end of the spectrum, while middlegrade books meant for older readers may even slightly exceed 55,000 words. 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. 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% of books have fewer words and 50% of books have more words. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Some will tell you 2,500 words is the average, while others will say that 3,000 to 5,000 word chapters are more likely to be the norm. Once you know what your book will be about, its time to start planning the structure of the story.
What will happen in each chapter, and how much has to happen before you move on to the next chapter. However sometimes, like today, the reverse happens. The average word count for a typical novel ranges anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words, with the average hanging. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. As with everything else when it comes to writing a book, these are only guidelinesnot rules. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be.
967 142 70 1047 210 632 131 1016 113 360 1485 528 181 1323 135 845 852 588 244 285 949 973 1068 18 1051 186 618 168 952 527 392