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. A 100 page book would be, then, about 25,000 words. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Perhaps the real answer is that the book is finished when the story is told and you are satisfied with it. By reading 300 words per minute, it will take you 83100 minutes to read this book. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. The overview below provides an indication of the number of pages required based on font. Different books and publishers have different layouts for their pages. Then you multiply that by 9, which is the working estimate of how many words are in a line.
That will give you the number of words in a published paperback of a james bond book. The answer is around 4 pages single spaced, and 8 pages double spaced. Hulse published by houghton mifflin harcourt on january 20, 2014 genreslists. When you query a publisher, its customary to include your novels estimated word count. That being said, ive seen a lot of conflicting opinions from agents on how word count should be donewhether its. Use our handy table to discover how many pages a given word count yields, single or double spaced, in times new roman or arial 12 point font.
We were liars was the most talked about book of the summer of 2014. This is a story of the marginalization of the muslim population and of a serious young man whose life is destroyed by curfews and evergrowing limits on life. All we have to do is use the wp tool that shows word count. An approximate word count round numbers based on what your wp tells you enables them to estimate costs and other factors involved in printing a. While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure. These books are generally heftier in general, so for a 150 page book you can target 45,000 words and 60,000 words for a 200 page book. For the larger, 6 x 9 trim size, would be about 300 words per page. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke.
Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. Publishers want to know the overall length of your book. This gives you 200 large print, 500 for an academic book with 350 words per paperback page as a working average. At 200 pages, the total word count for this book equals 50,00060,000. If its the latter then just aim for 80120 thousand words 127,000 words is 208 pages of single spaced a4 thats my word count and youll be fine. Log into facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know. Your computer count will be considerably different. David starr jordan the color of animals is by no means a matter of chance. Your word processing software and settings may result in slightly different pages counts, but with conventional page margins and a 12 point arial or. If you think about having to write 75,000 words 200 pages youll freak yourself out. So that comes out to about 400 a page and then factor in the double spacing and. For example, a ya novel might use a larger font size to increase readability leaving only 200 words on the page.
However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. Black river is about a broken man named wes who returns to his home in montana with his wifes ashes to set her to rest. Its completely logical why so many people talk about writing a book or a. 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. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. Thats approximately 300 pages of doublespaced type. An ebook could be 3,000 words or as long as a fulllength book. Have you been given this target of 200 pages, or do you just want to write a novel, and so are wondering how long it should be. Journalists descend on the town, like shrill birds, and a longtime resident decides to tell a story that none of them will know. Love it or hate it, this book is a mustread and its barely over 100 pages, so do it. To put these numbers in perspective, if you type with a font size of 10, you could be packing nearly words on each a4 page which would make nearly 3 paperback pages. The last words he speaks are, my name is jimmy the terrorist. Word counts for childrens books i received a request awhile ago to do a post on word counts for different age categories in childrens lit.
A sample of five words was randomly selected from a 200page book. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. The 200 most common words in english it is said that 80% of all english sentences can be formed using just the most common 200 words. When i write technical articles, theyre usually 600 words and about a page and a half. Single spaced, 3000 words yields about 6 pages, while double spacing produces around 12 pages. Perhaps the real answer is that the book is finished when the story is told and you. In the opposite direction, it can give a more accurate estimate of how many pages you have created if you only know the word count.
In north america, the standard used by editorial staff in figuring word count is 250 words per page, 10 words per line using a 12 pt. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. These books are generally heftier in general, so for a 150page book you can target 45,000 words and 60,000 words for a 200page book. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Assuming you use the standard conventions for manuscript format 1 margins, 25 doublespaced lines per page, and a 12 point nonproportional font like courier, then a good rule of thumb is one page equals 250 words for the mathimpaired, that means you multiply the number of. That said, each manuscript should be long enough to adequately tell its story or. How many words in a middlegrade book 20,000 55,000. If you have front or back matter dedications, forewords, bibliography, indexes, etc. You dont want to overwrite and be forced to use a teeny font. By using these three options to more accurately define your writing, the words per page calculator should provide a better estimate on how many words you need to write to fill a page. 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.
Your computer count will be considerably different from this basic calculation and when i was under contract to several na publishing houses, they werent at all interested in what i thought the word count was. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Hence, a manuscript not a published book of 200 pages is figured at 250 wpp x 200 pages 50,000 words. Rudyard kipling return to joes home return to vocabulary page. In other words, its about figuring page space and not word count.
Depending on your word processor and preferences the page count may vary slightly, but with typical margins and 12 point arial or times new roman font you should expect a similar number of pages. Then consider writing a manuscript of similar length. In fact, the majority of printed books are turned into ebooks. In practice you need to subtract 1520% from the page word total once the white space is taken into account. 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. On the other hand, a modern fantasy novel might have a much smaller font and tighter. Lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, roald dahls charlie and the chocolate factory.
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. Using a standard font size, you can estimate about 250300 words per page. Because a 200page book filled with short snappy dialogue is going to have far fewer words than a 200page book filled with long descriptive paragraphs. A sample of five words was randomly selected from a 200. This translates into just 20,000 to 25,000 words for a 100 page book, 30,000 to 42,500 words for a 150page book, perhaps just 40,000 words for a 200page book. Writers digest recommends 80,000 to 89,999 words as a 100% safe range for literary, mainstream, womens, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller and horror. Its no longer necessary to estimate according to the 250wordsperpage formula. Long passages 200 400 words adapted from the colors of animals by sir john lubbock in a book of natural history 1902, ed. Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. The average number of letters of the five words was calculated. If the average page has 250300 words, then the word count for a 100page book totals 25,00030,000. Using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book.
What is the best estimate for the average word length in the whole book. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Learn english vocabulary words are the most powerful drug used by mankind. If you read 300 words per minute, then it will take you 166200 minutes to. This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. With the luxury of a beach day without kids, i think i could have read it in one sitting. This trim size is good for only 200 to 250 words per printed book page. Yes, many books for children are under 200 pages, but alice is a masterpiece for all ages. This would mean a book with 30,000 words would be roughly 120 pages. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. These figures represent continuous words with no blank lines or breaks. The average word length of each of the 10 samples is given in the table. Then you multiply the number of lines by the number of pages in the book in this case, 300 pages. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page.