Novel writing word count per page

You set a word count goal, chip away at it day by day and finish ontime. You should be writing in size 12 font on standard sized paper, not trying to emulate the look of a published book. Word counts vary depending on font, double or singlespaced, whether there is more narrative or dialogue, and so on. How many words per page are there in a typical novel.

A first draft is just that, an outpouring of the story. Do check your comparable titles recent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range. A 25 line page, then, will have an average of 250 wordsa nice big round number. Did the math and created a guideline for myself to use. Im curious about your advice compose the novel in the standard format from the start rather than changing it later why does this matter. For example, if youre writing for genres that have a word count range of 80,00089,999 words i.

When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. The daily word counts of 19 famous writers word counter blog. Bestselling author caleb carr may write novels of 250,000 words, but when you pitch your novel and offer up that number, be prepared for a glacial reception. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. This is useful only as a writers alternate way of assessing the length of a manuscript, nothing more. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Books in this genre are also often gag gifts or are meant to be facetious. Im presently working on a novel and want to make certain my. As a publisher who has laid out dozens of books for printinga 50,000 word manuscript should end up somewhere between 180 and 220 pages. Word processing programs have a function that calculates the number automatically, but the results are not reliable in the publishing world. Those of you who dont care about traditional publishing can leave the room now. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words.

Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. You must provide an accurate word count per page or by document when you are submitting a literary project. What is the generally accepted number of words per page for a published novel. Part of the reason is that the createspace formula includes a costperpage component. I tend to get about 500 words, singlespaced, per page which is probably a fair estimate. So that your editor can estimate the word count and the final page count of your book. Our book page count calculator will help you figure out how many. How to calculate a word count per page pen and the pad. 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. Just to keep in mind, the average one spaced page usually contains about 3000 characters or 500 words.

You can use word to count how many words you have written in a document. Sixty characters per line at an average of six characters per word a publishing industry rule of thumb works out to an average of ten words per line. Word counts give writers something to aim for and an idea of what a. The binding, font and paper size establish how many pages a published book will be. Using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average. Prices are all over the map, so im happy to provide some ballpark estimates for different types of editing service rates. Failing to mention the word count, or committing the faux pas of stating the page count instead, will also see a quick rejection. Price per word total price total word count cost calculator. Word count is the devil you have to love, or at the very least, respect. 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. When the final work is printed for sale and published, the number of words per page will differ. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k.

Aug 15, 2019 average word count for this book genre. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. I remember reading some westerns in high school and, if i. Your wordcount wordsperline x linesperpage x numerofpages. How many words are there on the average page of a novel. 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. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. On average, there are about 300 words per page in a book. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. Im presently working on a novel and want to make certain my word count falls in line with what other authors produce. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. Thats really hard to say, books are usually measured by word count and not page count.

For manuscripts, the answer is about 250300 words per page if it is doublespaced. May 14, 2018 with a track record to back them up, established writers have greater flexibility. So, a 55,000word manuscript is about 220 typeset pages, and a 100,000word manuscript is about 400 typeset pages. Now that weve covered how many words are in a novel, its time to break it down even further by finding out the ideal number of chapters in a novel and how many words are used in a typical chapter depending on the writing genre, word count in book chapters can vary considerably. 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. Page count is determined by the publisher, not the writer. Average word count per page creative writing forums. Generally, there are 300 words per typed doublespaced page, using a 12 point font. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. Mainstream, thriller, horror, romance, suspense, mystery, and literary and you want to adhere to the 3,0005,000 word count range per chapter, then that would probably entail about 16 to 30 chapters. Wordprocessing programs have a function that calculates the number automatically, but the results are not reliable in the publishing world. If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book category.

First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. I made it 75% to 80% of the way on four different rewrites of my first manuscript before i finally completed the story on my fifth attempt. As previously discussed, there are different requirements for both fiction and nonfiction genres. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot. Then i counted the average number of pages per chapter, and the number of chapters. Its important to keep in mind that some editors charge a flat fee per project, some charge hourly, some charge by page count, and some charge by word count. As a result, a 100k manuscript can size up very differently on a shelf. Roughly how many pages would 50,000 words produce in a. Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans.

Ive heard people say you shouldnt concern yourself with page counting while writing. The required number of word per page is dependent on the writing service. A particular difficulty is created when comparing word counts across different writing systems. In north america, the standard used by editorial staff in figuring word count is 250 words per page, 10 words per line using a 12 pt.

I once entered a competition that set a maximum word limit of 80,000 for young adult novels and 100,000 for adult novels. Learn the average wordcount for every type of novel, novella, genre, etc. 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 is another common question, and for most writers it should be easy to answer by. Jun 16, 2017 part of the reason is that the createspace formula includes a costperpage component. Count characters and words with the anycount tool for a precise estimate and get every single cent youve earned. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. 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. Writing a novel is inevitably labour intensive, and any work you avoid at one end of the process will inevitably be added at the other. That being said you can usually assume about 250 words per a printed page.

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. This 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. Thus the total cost of the book without any kind of profit built in can end up being priced way too high. This is due to the audience youre reaching preferring that length. Aug 28, 2010 word count is the devil you have to love, or at the very least, respect. You could even write it as just one enormous chapter if that helps at the. Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. The logographic chinese characters used to write east asian languages each represent one morpheme and are not separated by spaces.

This is a true statement if your goal is to be published through traditional methods someday. 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. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. The typical books wordsperpage count tends to range between 225 and 275an average of 250. You can approach your writing target in various ways to suit your style. I typed out one page of the text yes it did take a while and got the approximate number of words per page. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count.

Pacemaker is a playful way of making peace with your writing goals. Credible freelance writing services require a minimum of 300 words per page but other services will establish a minimum word count closer to 250 words. So if a full line is 60 characters long, your wordsperline is 10. On my first novel, when i got to point where i could estimate the word count for the completed work, i would panic and start chopping and reworking. The writing market has changed a lot since i first got published. I calculated the word count words per line for 10 lines divided by 10 times the number of lines per page times the number of pages, rounding the product for dan browns origin 231,000 words, robert ludlums the prometheus deception 210,000, daniel silvas the black widow 180,000, brad thors code of conduct 166,000, michael connellys the crossing 129,000, and vince flynns enemy. We have compiled a list of the daily word counts of famous authors and what they had to say about writing every day. To get an idea of what your book will look like you need to match the number of words per page on your word processing page to the finished printed page. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. The daily word counts of 39 famous authors writers write.

A 90,000 word count signals to professionals that you know what you are doing. Jul 28, 2018 in north america, the standard used by editorial staff in figuring word count is 250 words per page, 10 words per line using a 12 pt. When writing my novel, whats a good average word count per chapter and per. How to increase your novels word count noveldoctor. May 07, 2018 this 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. You should be writing in size 12 font on standard sized paper. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Academic books might put 600 words on a page with works of reference. Therefore, a 55,000 word book should be about 200 manuscript pages. A manuscript for a novel is typically 500 words per page if singlespaced. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to.

This is because these programs only count actual words, but publishers. Depending on the text formatting, a page word count may include from 200 large print up to 600 words academic book. Jul 24, 2009 hillsy said im always confused when it comes not so much to word count, but to word per page count. Other variations exist, and theyre all fine wordcount is an. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper.