Average published book word count per page in a paperback

Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference squeezing in words. 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. 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. I just laid out a 65,000word book and it ended up, with a couple pages of photos and a few pages of appendix, at 268 pages the pages in the main body of the text are numbered up to 237.

If a novel has a total of 80,000 words with 300 words per page, the number of manuscript pages is 267. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. The editor also provides four popular trim sizes for formatting 4. This reduction will be very small, like maybe 12 lines less per page, and 510 pages less for the 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. A 100 page book would be, then, about 25,000 words. I use amazons data feeds to come up with the calculation.

Pages by paperback uses an industry standard formula for english language publishing of taking the average number of words per page and multiplying it by the average number of characters per word five including a space, for six total, the product of which is then used to divide against the total character count of the project. If you want to experiment with book sizes and the way they might impact your typesetting choices, the reedsy book editor allows you to do so for free. On the other end, reference and academic books can have huge word counts. Understanding book layouts and page margins joel, thanks a ton for all of your info. So if you write a 35,000 word manuscript, your formatted book will likely be around 140 pages. For example, heres how we calculate the printing cost of a 300 page black ink paperback sold on the us marketplace. In any case, assuming the book is published, what you submit to a publisher will certainly be different from the printed edition. 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. Unfortunately, they dont offer word count so ive created an algorithm based on the number of pages, genre, and the dimensions of the book. How many pages would this be on the average sized paperback novel. How many pages would my manuscript be in paperback.

Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. But think about your reader when setting your book margins. If your manuscript is properly formatted it should be about 250 words per page. Trim size is the publishing term for book size specifically the dimensions used for each page of your book. In these cases, the overall design of the book determines the publishing costs more than word count. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. But while page count is integral to your perbook cost, its not something youll.

Some use 250 words per page, but 330 is closer to reality and gives a reader a good idea of book. It all depends on the font type, font size, spacing, and formatting of the text. If you price your book incorrectly you may reduce your shortterm profitability and likelihood of longterm success. Most published books average closer to 300 words per page than 200. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. This article is the first in a series to address formatting for print books. How to set the retail price of your book mill city press. 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.

I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. 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. 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. When the physical characteristics of your book such as page count, covers, binding, size, etc.

Because dialogue requires paragraph breaks, there will be fewer words than if you have a few pages of full paragraphs instead of dialogue. Search for word count totals in books word counters. A manuscript for a novel is typically 500 words per page if singlespaced. The actual word count for the hunger games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 94,743 words. To calculate your paperback s printing cost, we add the applicable fixed cost to the product of your page count multiplied by the applicable per page cost. Word processing programs have a function that calculates the number automatically, but the results are not reliable in the publishing world. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. How does your book measure compare to whats succeeding in todays marketplace. Sep 11, 2010 i was looking online and most of the sources i found said the average number of words per novel page is 250, and the average words per book were 60,000120,000. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. Pod book printing costs are usually determined by a percover charge plus a perpage charge.

Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. Many diy book formatters make the mistake of making their margins too narrow in order to decrease page count thereby lowering the cost per book. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. For a manuscript, the answer is two pages if the word count per page is 250 and it is double spaced. You must provide an accurate word count per page or by document when you are submitting a literary project. Once you have a vision for your booksmall, standard, or wide formatyou can move on to the second step in deciding how many words you should write. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. 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. Estimate a small reduction for the lines per page and the numberofpages values. By example, a book with 720,000 characters with an estimate set to 250 words. The one main advantage this genre has over every other is that.

Standard book trim sizes are the book sizes most commonly used in the publishing industry for books of a particular genre or type. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a. Go to a bookstore and support your fellow authors by purchasing these books, or check them out of the library. How many words per page are there in a typical novel. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Oct 26, 2018 in a nutshell, the trim size dictates your page count.

The smaller your trim size, the more pages will be required for your content. I put both the word count on mine and the number of pages, being the word count divided by 330, which is the number of words on a typical paperback page. These guidelines are intended for designers of paperbacks with black and white or color interiors, with fullcolor covers. Take a typical 250word per page, 15 pages of good content contains around 3,750 words. I am writing a novel right now, and im up to 4025 words in 10. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. For help formatting your paperback manuscript, see our guides for microsoft word for windows, microsoft word for mac and pages for mac. If you want them to finish reading your book, make the reading experience as enjoyable as you possibly can. So for each part or section in your book, add 2 pages to your book page count. If your book is divided into parts or sections, youll probably add a part or section divider page followed by a blank between each part or section. For debut books in this field the average word count tends to be 35k and it has therefore become the marker many industry professionals look for in queries from new writers.

Each genre and subgenre has its own word count range. As you can see, a smaller trim size will produce more pages for the same word count, and a larger trim size will produce less. Ultimately, you can expect there to be roughly 300 words per page in a book you write as a whole. If this thread still going can someone tell me how many words is reasonable for a chapter im writing my first fantasy novel and worried if i have too short or to long of a chapter right now my first chapter word count is at 1,436 and in counting. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. Im presently working on a novel and want to make certain my word count. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count calculator we put at the bottom of this page. For the larger, 6 x 9 trim size, would be about 300 words per page.

Well, calculating it out, that would mean the average book was 240480 pages. Give or take, the average paperback has 250350 words per page. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres, check out the breakdown in the article. First steps in formatting for print the editors blog. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. If youre concerned about the final page count for your book, you should know that the average 6. I was looking online and most of the sources i found said the average number of words per novel page is 250, and the average words per book were 60,000120,000. Both rules of thumb are imperfect, but weve found the 250300 word per page rule works better more often than the 60 percent per page rule. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. There are times when it helps to know how many words per page youre writing. This perpage charge makes your books page count instrumental in the cost per book, which is why its the first item youll fill out in the printing calculator.

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. When the final work is printed for sale and published, the number of words per page will differ. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Times new roman, doublespaced, leftside justified only, 1. Coffee table books and other illustrated books may have very little text, but be very expensive to print because the extensive illustrations require better quality paper. Pitch the perfect word count this 90,000 word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals.

That would put your 150,000 word novel at say 300400 pages, not an inordinate length. This will give you a rough estimate of the word count. 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. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. Another recommendation by tom corsonknowles from tck publishing. While a general guideline is one page is 500 words single spaced or 250 words double spaced, this is a ballpark figure. For example, if your book has 14 chapters, add 7 pages to your page count. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. If you intend to selfpublish print books i can recommend the experience as a positive one, then having a few tips and insights about the process before you begin will be helpful because theres a lot to cover, this topic is going to require several articles.

Traditional publishers and agents advised using the industry formula for determining word count, which is assuming certain standards 12 pt. With longer books, you can get a rough count by adding up the number of words on an average page and multiplying by the total number of pages. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book.

Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. May 14, 2018 readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. List of book sizes standard sizes for all different self. If you want to get a target for your nonfiction book, the best thing may be to look at a dozen or so bestselling books in the genreniche youre aiming at and see what their word counts are. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Of course some of those lines may only have 3 or 4 words for dialogue. Only if youre a major celebrity can you blow right through that word count and just keep going. Hello, i was just wondering how many words the average novel has on a page. For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot.

Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. What is the generally accepted number of words per page for a published novel. Things like headers, titles, margins, and blank lines are why ms word count is not exactly accurate. This is because these programs only count actual words, but publishers. Having some reallife examples at your side, you should get a better sense of. This 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. Here are ten tips to help you price your books profitably. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid.

The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. Have you had lots of questions over the years about word s mirrored margins. Self published author ten tips for pricing your book. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. Victorian novels often ran over half a million words.

What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. Most memoirs need to be in the 70,000 to 100,000word range. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. In contrast, word count is finite and usually i can calculate book length with about 99% accuracy in part because also included in any calculation is a count of figures, tables, etc. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. During the introductory month of the new system, the conversion of kenpc into the actual number of words in the book actual word count showed significant differences from one book to the other. The publisher mechanically trims the pages to make sure theyll all be uniform in size. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. Estimate your page count book designer fiona raven.

The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Published books vary in words per page, depending on the publisher, the size of the book, what font they choose, etc. I have just about 60 pages of microsoft word pages big pages, on size 14 in text. We limit title submissions to 1,000 per week per account. That being said, this range is true for most booksalways do the research into comparable books and price your book accordingly. So, a 55,000word manuscript is about 220 typeset pages, and a 100,000word manuscript is about 400 typeset pages. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. By example, a book with 720,000 characters with an estimate set to 250 words per page will produce a result of 720000 2506 480. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. That being said, this range is true for most books always do the research into comparable books and price your book accordingly. Aug 05, 2019 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. Do check your comparable titlesrecent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range.