Writing a book word count

Now im seeing a lot more mg books with up to 60,000 words, so i think the water has become a bit murky here. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. If you know how long the book is, you can divide it into eighths to find the perfect timing for all your major turning points. I do find if someone has written a very short or overly long novel, they often dont quite have a grip on their story. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable.

Word count is very important to writing books for young children. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a word count guideline. Once youve started writing, you need a total word count for your book. May 15, 2019 are you ready to write a middle grade novel. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. This book genre encompasses several different types of books. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. Im curious about your advice compose the novel in the standard format from the start rather than changing it later why does this matter. 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.

Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Few elements of the book writing process inspire such handwringing and teethgnashing as trying to constrain your novel within certain seemingly arbitrary bounds. Therefore, a 280,000 word manuscript becomes a 900 page doorstop. Some genres like science fiction can be much longer and spend 1,000s of words on worldbuilding. Perkins agency in new york says its much easier to market a firsttime novelists book if the word count falls between 80,000 and 100,000 words, or roughly 300 doublespaced, typed pagesthe average novel length.

Aug 05, 2019 certain publishers of very specific genres like love inspired, harlequin will require a set word count or range, but my first bit of advice is to plot out a strong, solid story using timetested structure, write the book with careful and expert crafting learn to be a great wordsmith and develop your unique voice, and ignore the constraints. Discover the average number of words on a page by counting the number of words on three randomly picked full pages distributed throughout the book. The main takeaway from this is that your word count needs to bear some resemblance to reader expectation. If there is an average, 60,000 words to 80,000 words are probably the sweet spot. Aug 15, 2019 average word count for this book genre. Word count is important because it helps you select your readers. Here, we are going to focus on the next three tips to help you get the book done. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. 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. This number can vary depending on if youre writing dialogue or how short each. If you dont know how to find your documents word count, this article shows you how.

Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is the quality of your manuscript. I tried lots of things, but until i got to the magic phrase, which turned out to be word count meter, most of my searches. 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. Think in terms of 10thousand work increments and break each chapter into roughly equal lengths. There are a lot of elements that go into writing a story, like fleshing out characters, piecing together the plot, and crafting the perfect ending. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or. Too many words are a warning sign that the author does not know how to write for the age group and that the book has not been edited seriously enough. If youre writing your first novel, the general rule of thumb for novel writing is a word count in the 80,000 to 100,000 range. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. There are a few book word count guidelines for each genre, but these arent hard. You can simply enlist for a writing service, like that offered by our company, or seek for other companies which can either give you too high a price or give you cheap but low quality academic papers.

How to write a middle grade novel childrens book editor. Page count is determined by the publisher, not the writer. There are a number of factors deciding the word count, topmost being what sort of book it is. But your word count might be a reason it is being rejected. Word count for book series the first book in each series below was the authors first. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Publishers know this and often wont even look at a book submission that is too long. Like everything in writing, you may write a work of genius that smashes all the rules. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words.

Pacemaker is a playful way of making peace with your writing goals. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. Your book may be complete and you are just telling the agent or editor its length. The answer will be the approximate page count of a printed book. Certain publishers of very specific genres like love inspired, harlequin will require a set word count or range, but my first bit of advice is to plot out a strong, solid story using timetested structure, write the book with careful and expert crafting learn to be a great wordsmith and develop your unique voice, and ignore the constraints. As a general rule of thumb, a novel falls somewhere between word count ranges of 50,000 words and 100,000 words. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing. A word from our customers our clients love what we do.

Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Smiley lists novels as typically being between 100,000 and 175,000 words, while national novel writing month. Word count to book pages resources for independent authors. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. On the technical side of things, authors need to consider the number of words that will be in their completed manuscript. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the. How to calculate your books length before writing helping. So if youre writing a series, start small, then increase the word count with each release. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. The book pages are determined by the trim size of the book, font and typeface, margins, illustrations, and line spacing. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. Not saying you need word counts like mine, but find your version of a high word count and see how you like a writing sprint, versus a writing walk.

The word counts of some famous novels for comparison. Regarding the value of adhering to standard word counts, jackie bates, a former managing editor at aa publishing, adds. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. 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 binding, font and paper size establish how many pages a published book will be. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Publishers are probably more open to this approach, since when you become more established, theres less risk for them with bigger books. Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit.

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. Apr 23, 2018 few elements of the bookwriting process inspire such handwringing and teethgnashing as trying to constrain your novel within certain seemingly arbitrary bounds. Once you have decided what type of book you are writing, which genre you are writing in and the approximate word count, you can then consider which of two ways you will approach your writing. Although, youll notice with the harry potter books the length of each book increases with each release in the series. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. You set a word count goal, chip away at it day by day and finish ontime. We will learn which age groups to target, what narrative styles work best and why, and what kind of word count you need in order to craft a strong middle grade book. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen.

While anything over 40,000 words can fall into the novel category, 50,000 is considered the minimum novel length. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. 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. For example, if you write a novel and it is long, about 100,000 words long, then naturally there will be some readers to whom it is not suitable just because of the word count. As a reader i love the huge word count novels steven king has written and the very short gems tom robbins has penned. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. There is a sweet spot when it comes to word count, and its based on a books genre and target audience.

As a result, a 100k manuscript can size up very differently on a shelf. Why word count matters when you submit your book the artful. The daily word counts of 19 famous writers word counter blog. For that group, a novel is more than 40k words, a novella is 17. This is due to the audience youre reaching preferring that length. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. You can approach your writing target in various ways to suit your style. When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is.

Word count matters more than it should in my opinion. Everything you need to know about novel word counts. The first book in each series below was the authors first. Cookbooks vary greatly and are more dependent on number of recipes instead of total words. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. Focus on making that book the best it can be this means selfediting, writing several drafts, and employing. The crappy first draft when i tell people about my word counts they typically ask how in the heck i can write so many words. But for print publishing, the physical cost of producing the book is an issue, and the market does generally know what it likes. May 07, 2018 your book may be complete and you are just telling the agent or editor its length. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words.

Y ou can determine an approximate number of book pages by filling in some simple math formulas. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the. Anything over 110,000 words is considered too long for a fiction novel. For most adult fiction, adult nonfiction, and ya novels, simply divide the total number of words by 250 to get a page count estimate. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. Sep 20, 2019 if youre writing a young adult fantasy novel, you should keep your word count below 90,000 words or 300 book pages. Word count is important in the formula that book formatters and printers use to determine page length. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. In this article we will explore how to write middle grade fiction and why this childrens book format is flourishing today. There are many ways a book can qualify to be in the art genre.