Average word count of books

The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. Average word count ranges from 70,000 to 100,000 words, although biographies of major celebrities or public figures can support a higher number. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. 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. 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. 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.

The sorcerers stone 77,325 words the chamber of secrets 84,799 words the prisoner of azkaban 106,821 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. Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. What is a good way to get the word count of a kindle book. In 2015, the drop resumed as the average fell to 345. The first book in each series below was the authors first. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Many of these books are written in rhyme or in a simple singsong meter that is catchy and fun. 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 book.

Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. Weaving another character or subplot into the story is going to make it longer, and trust me, by the 5th or 6th editing pass, youre going to be a little bored and start adding things. For you dear authors, the only time you should take note about the word count is probably when you are hiring someone for editing and formatting because the more word count you have, the more the service is going to cost you. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Publishers want to know the overall length of your book.

Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively. This article on writers digest also suggests a length of around 100115,000, and takes a good look at desirable word count ranges for different genres. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. The average mean word count was about 73,000 words. First time authors should steer clear of writing anything over 80,000 words. I publish my books first on smashwords and then, after they pass vetting for the smashwords premium catalog, i publish them on amazon as well. This question came in as a reader comment on one of the earlier blog posts.

That said, the average word count for science fiction and fantasy novels generally lies between 100,000 and 115,000. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. The grandfather of modern christian fiction, in his steps by charles m. Fleshing out an imagined historical world lends itself to a higher word count, so historical fiction tends to be closer to 100,000 words.

Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. These word counts are my personal references they are not official, and do not include back matter, which is bonus material for the reader or information geared for parents, teachers, or older readers. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. This is due to the audience youre reaching preferring that length. However, we do not suggest writing a novel of 500,000 words unless you as established as stephen king is. 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. 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. Word count for book series the first book in each series below was the authors first. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsperline. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. Click librarian or teacher and then search for books like yours click on the.

The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to be. Famous book series and novel word counts count words and. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000word range. Word counts from the nyt best sellers list writers rumpus. Most blogs and writer websites had the moreorless the same advice forget the length and the average word count of your novel. So should i stay with this word count, or try to bring the word count down. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. The left behind series original books, not including the prequel, 19952007 by tim lahaye and jerry b. Urban fiction publishing requirements urban fiction news.

Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. For nonfiction books, word count guidelines are more flexible, sometimes even double the word counts listed here. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book.

As always, be sure to keep it interesting so you can justify the word length. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. In the end, i suppose the best word count is the one that most successfully. Sep 09, 2012 word count i get a lot of questions about word count for urban fiction novels. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words.

The hunger games uses 3,700word chapters, dividing each chapter into three parts. Can be publisher specific, ranging from 3,000 to absolute max 5,000. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. The following are average wordcount ranges by genre.

However if youre curious to see what the average word count is for standard genres, check out the breakdown in the article. Smashwords gives a precise word count for each and every b. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has an average of 4,560 words per chapter. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. From picture books to ya information to get you started at. Writing for young adults a look at the numbers hannah holt. The golden compass by philip pullman 112,815 words, prisoner of azkaban by jk rowling 106,821 words, and enders game by orson scott card 100,609 words. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book.

Oct 06, 2010 if they dont specify a word count, and many dont, take a look at some of their books in your local library and do a quick word count by counting three lines, dividing by three to get an average, multiplying by the number of lines on the page and then by the number of pages. When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words. Counting chickens a few words about word counts at hope vestergaards site. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle. Most middle grade novels are between 40,000 and 69,000 words long. Oct 18, 2017 the average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average words perline count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted. Like novels, these books fall into the 70,000 to 120,000word range. Sep 20, 2019 as you can see, word count for science fiction books vary widely. Im not sure if im pushing the word count over, been trying cut back the word count. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction.

Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. Oct 23, 2017 dont count on royalties to support you. Count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. Jul, 2017 i dont think there is a way and this is odd. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically. Finish the draft first, then worry about word count.

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. What do most writers see as a good average chapter length. I once entered a competition that set a maximum word limit of 80,000 for young adult novels and 100,000 for adult novels. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Apr 11, 2015 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. The average mean word count was about 53,000 words. Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. May 15, 2011 well, while the accelerated reader program is lame in a lot of ways, this is a very handy tool. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. Apr 08, 2019 rather than sticking too rigidly to word count, its best to strive for a manuscript in which the function and the format work together.

When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. Word count for novels and childrens books at the guide to literary agents blog. Writing middle grade a look at the numbers hannah holt. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Click librarian or teacher and then search for books like yours click on the titles to get all kinds of info about them, including wordcount. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. 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. Feb 09, 2015 word counts of popular ya books as i started drafting my new wip a ya scifi thriller i began wondering what word count i should aim for. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. This question about average word count was on my mind as well, when i started writing my book. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job.

We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. All we have to do is use the wp tool that shows word count. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. 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. 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. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. Jun 27, 2019 that said, the average word count for science fiction and fantasy novels generally lies between 100,000 and 115,000. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. The di vinci code 2003 by dan brown is 8,380 words christian book word count.

At an average reading rate of 125 words per minute, thats about 145 hours of reading. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Some are as short as 50,000 words the perfect book for a beach vacation.

Realize it over the maximum word count for erotic, science fictionfantasy genre. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. Ar book finder categorizes this book as a middle grade. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. 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. In any of these books, some chapters are longer than others.

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. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Heres a general guideline i sometimes use for fiction board books for babies and toddlers to picture books for upper elementary and middlegrade learners. As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. The word count at big five publishers had a slightly narrower range. If my manuscript is coming in at 280 pages it would be acceptable at 70,000 words using the 250 per page method but the docs count may be as much as 6,0007,000 words less and so not hitting the ideal. Word counts of famous book series harry potter by jk rowling. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page.

To find pretty much any kids ya word count, you can use the ar bookfinder. 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. Writing towards a word count might not work for everybody, but having a rough goal in mind certainly helps me when im sketching out chapters and undertaking my first draft. If youre writing an adult fantasy novel or an epic fantasy novel like game of thrones, your word count can skew higher at 90,000 200,000 words. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful.