Average word count in book

But rules are made to be broken, and the most successful publishing phenomenon in history did just that. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. Your best bet is to figure out what books yours is comparable to, then sit down and count the words on 23 typical pages. 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. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. On average, when writing a memoir should not exceed 90,000 words and that is a stretch when it comes to memoir word count. Thats approximately 300 pages of doublespaced type. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. I was scared that agents would reject my book simply because i had got the length wrong. Average word count in a book book editing services.

However, keep in mind when we talked about how people dont know how to edit their work. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. Memoir is the same as a novel and that means youre aiming for 80,00089,999. Famous book series and novel word counts count words and.

On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. To save the time and effort of counting wordbyword, often a rule of thumb for the average number of words per line was. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. At an average reading rate of 125 words per minute, thats about 145 hours of reading. The trim size of your book dictates approximately how many words fit on one page, so start by choosing a trim size. The average short story should run anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. This means your memoir will average between 150 and 265 pages. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a wordcount guideline. Word counts of famous book series harry potter by jk rowling.

Unfortunately, they dont offer word count so ive created an algorithm based on the number of pages, genre, and the dimensions of the book. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. We recommend memoirs be between 45,000 to 80,000 words in order to maintain intrigue and reduce intimidation. 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. The actual word count for the hunger games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 94,743 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. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Short novels in general hit around 40,000 to 60,000 words, but most publishers wont touch a novel below 60,000. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. 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. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Follow this rough word count guide as you embark on your literary journey.

In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsperline 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 then. The sorcerers stone 77,325 words the chamber of secrets 84,799 words the prisoner of azkaban 106,821 words. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. The average word count in a book is 60k to 100k words. As a reader, ive never felt a good book was too long, even more than a thousand pages. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres.

The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000word range. Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. This is specially true in memoir, ive found, because people tend to write everything about their lifebecause it all really happened. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. It depends on the font you are using, of course, but in general, 250300 words per page. 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. But, he also mentions that the wizard of oz was 40,000 words.