Word count in the book route

Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. Heres how the wordcount of your book will decide what category your masterpiece falls in. 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. Word count is the devil you have to love, or at the very least, respect. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Be sure to subscribe to our email updates for free. 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. Where can i find a database of all published books word. Those of you who dont care about traditional publishing can leave the room now. Of the 161 stories listed, 3081 is the median word count number in the middle and 4052 is the average word count.

Some bookstores designate these as for kids 912 but i would say readers are mostly 68. Its easy to extrapolate from this what your total expected editing cost could be. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. As far as length, popular memoirs range quite a bit from about 60,000 words to 120,000 or more. Its free, its fun, and the winner gets published in prime number magazine and receives a free book from press 53. I am trying to determine if it will be feasible to revise a manuscript for a journal that has a 6500 word limit. But depending on the ereading device and the font size setting, it varies significantly between a phone, a tablet, or a kindle.

That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. Whats most ideal is that the word count of your novel falls within the range. 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. While the idea of chapters in the 3,000 to 5,000word range is a good guideline when roughing out your books structure, it isnt a rule, and the story itself should be the primary deciding factor. 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. For adult fiction especially crime, thrillers, womens fiction, saga and romance, 100,000 words is a good.

These are the basic classifications of what a book is by word count. Or should we just forego any hope of publication and go the ebook route. So should i stay with this word count, or try to bring the word count down. I put in anne of green gables and clicked on the first entry, and it listed the word count as 17,129.

Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. Typically, a book that is published in paperback format at a length of 300400 pages will come in between 80,000 and 100,000 words. Author eve tells me her book came in at 95,000 words. On the macro level in any type of edit, but especially a wordtrimming one, you always want to start with the big picture. Realize it over the maximum word count for erotic, science fictionfantasy genre. If youre a new author, id recommend staying on the shorter side, perhaps around the 75,000 word mark. I clicked on the unabridged version, and it lists the word count as 97,364. How to increase your novels word count noveldoctor. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by.

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. Go play cricket or bake a souffle or save the whales. Currently, the manuscript is between 7500 and 8000 words long, depending on how i count words. For others, making sure that they dont go over the word count can be a chore especially if their editor is strict about not going over that number.

Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. On the other hand, a high word count doesnt have to be the kiss of death. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. Since just comparing the number of unique words in a book does not take its length into account i decided to calculate the percentage of unique words of the whole text. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isnt novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much. The hobbit has more unique words and a higher unique word density than both the silmarillion and each volume in the lord of the rings. To find the word count at for a particular book, search the books title, and click on it.

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. Theres no point in obsessing about word choice if your story has whole scenes and whole subplots you can axe. 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. Still, instead of word count being neutral, it could be a negative. The important thing is that your length fits your book. Your 200k or 50k fantasy could indeed catch an agents eye, but its length might exclude it from opportunities that a 100k novel could take advantage of. What all of this taught me is that if youre going the traditional publishing route and submitting work as a debut author, you may not have the luxury of ignoring your word count. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. I talk more indepth about this in stories classified. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Word count dictates the number of pages in a print book, and this defines the spine thickness. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and.

For example, if an author has to write a minimum or maximum amount of words for an article, essay, report, story, book, paper, you name it. But overall, heres my own rough stab at word counts by genre. Chapter books are for more independent readers who are making the bridge between picture books and early readers and middle grade. Word counts and other distractions griffin paul jackson. The greater the word count the larger the book more sections and pages. Find the word count for published ya and childrens books. These were to do with whether the book would be categorised as a novel or a novella or an epic or something else. Amazon estimates a page count in an ebook to be around 187 words. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words.

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. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. There are also some subgenres that have slightly different conventions. Maybe its because i am datadriven or attracted to trivia, or just like to have a concrete number to say, this is what i did today, but i think the main reason is. I personally didnt want to take that route, as i didnt believe it was the right path for me. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k.

I love to know the word counts of books and essays. Because the spine is so important in how a novel presents on a bookstore shelf, thick is good. For some content writers or bloggers, hitting their word count is a pain. While page counts are a common but not universal feature of bibliographic metadata, word counts are much less frequently provided and are not at all mandatory. Novel 40,000 words or over novella 17,500 to 39,999 words novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words short story under 7,500 words. Know the recommended book length for the genre youre writing in. Smashwords gives a precise word count for each and every b. Higher word counts cost more to produce and if publishers are already taking a chance on a new author, taking a chance on a high word count is one more element of risk they have to deal with. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. For now, ill stick to my guidelines and word count, write the best book i can, and send fantastic queries. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book. In general, i manage a word count of about 4,000 words on a writing a. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book.

Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit. The thicker the better, because there is more room for the title and author name. Write as much as it takes to tell the story, and no more. That often dreaded, while at the same time appreciated, element of freelance writing. Fantasy, scifi, and epic novel writers should be forewarned. Youll receive an email on the first day of each month with our winning story and the prompt for our next contest. Within the publishing industry we tend to talk about the length of a book in words rather than in pages. Famous books and their word counts freelance writing jobs. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. I also include word counts from some best sellers in. However, jack kerouac takes the cake with on the road a book.

Im not sure if im pushing the word count over, been trying cut back the word count. A way to check word count of published books anita nolan. In this post, id like to share some thoughts on word count considerations. Nicholas sparks word count popular novel word count. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. A father and his son walk alone through burned america. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. Have you ever checked your books word count, written a few paragraphs, then checked again. Its okay, its a disease and well get through it together. 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.

To get an idea of word count average for indie authors, below are the current bestselling books from smashwords, a leading distributor of indie novels. Books should be judged by the quality of the story and storytelling, not the. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. You have just discovered the wonderful world of bibliographic metadata. Heres a quick word count guide for adult fiction, adult sff, young adult contemporary, young adult sff, and middle grade.

Everything you need to know about novel word counts. Word count, with a little help from amazon alexis grant. Duotrope a free writers resource listing over 3950 current fiction and poetry publications caps their search for short story publishers at 7,500 words, which means most publishers are looking for stories of less than that length. For a 120,000word book, your editing costs could be. Compressing a very exciting scene so you can meet your chapter word count target is also not going to do you any favors. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and.

I have tried searching the words word count plus the title of a novel, like the lovely bones, and all i get is the word count of essays and articles about the book in question, not for the book itself. That was the formula in the good old days when courier was the only typeface and typewriters were king. Put a title the exact title in the search engine, then click on the title, or one of the titles if more than one comes up. 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. This is a true statement if your goal is to be published through traditional methods someday. Editor dana isaacson discusses desirable word counts for different genres. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. For full titles, authors and descriptions of these books, see whats on my travel memoir bookshelf. Im leaving this in the list to show that word count isnt offered for every book. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. Generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. What is a good way to get the word count of a kindle book.

Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. I created this website to help you better gauge your books word count, because the. I dont need one of those equations to help calculate word count based on the number of pages times whatever. If a page is 500 words on an ipad, and 250 words on a kindle, it might be only 120 words on a phone. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Here is what 187 words looks like in microsoft word. A publisher with a production department that knows what theyre doing can estimate book length from a manuscript formatted in courier 12point, 1 margins, 25 lines per page. 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. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to word counts, and different sources are going to tell you different things.

It is, i think, the easiest to use to quickly find the word count of a book. However, it is not clear which of the following words will count toward my word count in decreasing order of word count. Manuscripts can range from about 5,000 words to about 15,000 words, max. But chapter word count is something that you want to keep in.