Especially if you go the route of internet publishing instead of the traditional. Im concerned because the word count is around 1,000 words. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. 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. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. But even if the book has some errors, its forcing me to do outside reading to understand those errors. Word count is important in the formula that book formatters and printers use to determine page length. The saga of an american family is a 1976 novel written by alex haley. Get started by typing directly into the text area above or pasting in your content from elsewhere. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. Editor dana isaacson discusses desirable word counts for different genres. As such, going the agentpublisher route may mean your book reaches a wider audience.
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. 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. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. When you need to know how many words, pages, characters, paragraphs, or lines are in a document, check the status bar. Wikipedia suggests it is some 1 million words longer than the malazan book of the fallen, its chief competition for the honor omitting shared universe tales like those of mercedes. The best word count for your selfpublished novel self. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, roots. Word and character counts will display at the top, any writing mistakes will be. This will give you a rough estimate of the word count for each of those books, and hopefully, a better idea of what to shoot for. From ackack to zipzap, reduplicative words are silly, childish, catchy, animalistic, nonsensical, and awesome. By the way, if you want to know what i think of logos. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. These days we need all the levity, lunar or otherwise, that we can get. Google book tool tracks cultural change with words.
Here is what i found in order from least words to most words. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Google book tool tracks cultural change with words a searchable database of more than 500 billion words from millions of books published over the past four centuries is now online. Word counts of the most popular books in the world. The book pages are determined by the trim size of the book, font and typeface, margins, illustrations, and line spacing. This lexical lunacy is a flimsy excuse for me to write about my favorite type of word. Know the recommended book length for the genre youre writing in. So, with only a few edits, the question and answer about word counts question.
Word count, with a little help from amazon alexis grant. As mentioned, general fiction for adults should come in at 100,000 words. A father and his son walk alone through burned america. What is a good way to get the word count of a kindle book. Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. Until i discovered ar book finder, a site that will give you the word count for almost all novels.
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. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Word count news newspapers books scholar jstor july 2014 learn how and when to remove this template message. A single novel can be longer, but once the length is above 110,000 words publishers may look at cutting it back, unless it is a particular kind of book books over the 110k word count are usually considered epics. First, reading length estimates the book s word count, based on the length of the audiobook or when theres no audiobook the page count. At amazon the page count for books for 10yearsold children varies from 120 to 350. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book. Word count to book pages resources for independent authors. Word counts from the nyt best sellers list writers rumpus. Free online pdf word count free word counter tool online to count the number of words in pdf files and documentsthe counter can includeexclude numbers years, dollar amounts. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 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.
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. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. Still, there may be some bestsellers out there that are submitted at 115,000 words, and turned down for bad books that are exact. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. The actual word count for the hunger games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 94,743 words. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Weighing in at over 4 million words, the wheel of time is assuredly among the longest fantasy series out there, although reliable data on the matter is elusive.
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. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. For full titles, authors and descriptions of these books, see whats on my travel memoir bookshelf. 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. Many publishers have trim size requirements based on word count, or you can browse bestseller lists for guidance. Again, these are just basic guidelines and actual word count can vary. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. I know were in the twitter age of 140 characters, but limiting a great book to 80,000 words just rubs me the wrong way and always will. Word counts the number of words in a document while you type.
A higher word count will make a book with a small trim size too bulky and uncomfortable to hold. These numbers are pulled from the original languages using logos bible softwareyou can see how i did it below. The word count button in microsoft word is a button on the screen that can count the number of words, lines, sentences, paragraphs, etc. Pick up a childrens book in your collection and count the words on one page.
Y ou can determine an approximate number of book pages by filling in some simple math formulas. For a partial word count, select the words you want to count. Pdf word count free online pdf word count tool to count. Were not even close to hitting the word count ceiling. It tells the story of kunta kinte, an 18thcentury african, captured as an adolescent, sold into slavery in africa, transported to north america. Generally a 50,000 word novel would be the minimum word count. Im leaving this in the list to show that word count isnt offered for every book. The answers to these questions all lead you down different paths.
At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. Multiply it with the page count and you get a vague idea. Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit. Besides, with some editing the word count can come down. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of. Ive put together word counts for every book of the bible. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. While its important that every story find its natural length, it takes time to develop an instinct as. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. But lets be honest, very few book ideas are even considered by agents let alone are sold onto a publisher.
As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. For example, while 55,000 words could technically constitute a novel, it would be rare to. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. My current wip is young adult, so i compiled a somewhat random list of ya novels by debut authors and looked up the book s word count. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and sampling to capture the. Top 10 highest revenue generating flight routes in the. What is the word count of jack kerouacs on the road answers. Word count and book length getting published was indeed a good blog post. This line count includes blank lines between paragraphs as well as lines with just a single word. The book seems to be poorly edited maybe they rearranged some content and didnt notice the errors those changes made. Word also counts pages, paragraphs, lines, and characters. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k.
A reader of the editors blog asked about word count for novels and although i answered the question on the blog article where it was posed, i thought other writers might have the same concern. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. But i understand your point that it would be better to have a lower word count from the start, thus increasing your chances of acceptance. However, i understand that the length of twilight is unusually long for a debut novel. On the high, high end weve got gone with the wind at 418,000 words, and more recently a suitable boy at almost 600,000 words. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for. Author eve tells me her book came in at 95,000 words. Though, please note that most of the sources i found had slightly different numbers and i. 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. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone is about 77,500 words total. Search for word count totals in books word counters. From lost to found on the pacific crest trail is a 2012 memoir by american author cheryl strayed, describing her 1,100mile hike on the pacific crest trail in 1995 as a journey of selfdiscovery. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count.
Per my original question, below, things are definitely out of order. Estimate the reading time for any book using reading length. Should writers worry about word count the editors blog. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. 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. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. Smashwords gives a precise word count for each and every b. Then, count how many words are on an average page of each of those books you can count the average words in a line, then multiply by the number of lines, then multiply that number by the number of pages. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words.
The hobbit 95,022 words the lord of the rings 455,125 words the two towers 143,436 words the return of the king 4,462 words. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. It didnt have any branching paths or choices which would have extended the reading time and used fairly straightforward language, so i feel like thats a number. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. Ar book finder categorizes this book as a middle grade. How long are the chapters in books by famous authors. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference.