Average book word count nonfiction

What is the ideal word count for a nonfiction book in the. Know your content, know your mainline pitch and some possible permutations, create a highlevel outline, write a compelling chapter and sell that. Search for word count totals in books word counters. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. The most important thing here is to realize that there are always exceptions to these rules. Apr 07, 2014 generally speaking, traditional publishers expect completed nonfiction book manuscripts to be between 50,000 to 75,000 words.

And man, people love to point out exceptionsand they always will. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. For a 70,000word book, your editing costs could be. Im okay with a manuscript that goes up to 30,000 words over the suggested word count. Any selfhelp or motivational nonfiction book should be between 30,000 and 70,000 words. Average nonfiction word counts biographies and memoirs. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Would you consider a post on memoir guidelines, since memoir falls somewhere between fiction and nonfiction in many ways. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. Word count for novels and books is something i dont think about too often until i travel to a writers conference, and then someone asks a simple, innocent question. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to be. I know fiction works on average come in at 60,000 but i really had no idea about non fiction. My upperlevel ya novel is 211 pages, 61,078 words, tnr 12 pt.

It makes quite a difference whether you want to publish a childrens picture book, a 50recipe smoothie book, a science fiction novel or a technical encyclopedia. If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book category. Youll always find exceptions, but if youre a new author, dont stray too far from the norm. But, most nonfiction publishers want to be sold the concept, and therefore be able to discuss the direction of the project, before you write the book. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. Given a standard font size of 11 and an average word count per page of 475 for a 6. As a nonfiction writer myself, i know this is tough. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for non fiction books. For nonfiction books, word count guidelines are more flexible, sometimes even double the word counts listed here. Elizabeth said, for nonfiction books, it depends on the kind of book.

Now, before you lose your mind, let me explain what i mean. Each genre and subgenre has its own word count range. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Do you want to publish a wide format bookwith inspiring quotes down the side margins. Picture book writers are often tempted to add scenes and secondary characters that make the story unnecessarily complex. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. Jan 08, 2018 calculate book page count using your word count. Do check your comparable titlesrecent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range.

The di vinci code 2003 by dan brown is 8,380 words christian book word count. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count.

Now, they dont offer word count or running time for books, but they do have a search api. At the other end of the spectrum a book of 80,000 to 100,000 words has significant heft, 320400 pages. What occurred to me while reading was how the predetermined word counts make it more difficult to query a novel that crosses categories. As for non fiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. When writing for the younger ages especially, every word must count. I guess 50,000 is a short novel and some early novels before goes as low as 40,000 which can be considered to be a novella. Jun 07, 2017 when talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. I advise authors to ignore word counts when writing. Rowling did it with her later harry potter books, but she stayed within the norm on the first several books. Few elements of the bookwriting process inspire such handwringing and teethgnashing as trying to constrain your novel within certain seemingly arbitrary bounds. For my travel memoir, should i query when i have a proposal and several sample chapters, like nonfiction, or wait until the manuscript is complete, like fiction. In my opinion, if your nonfiction book is fewer than about 30,000 words 120 pages, it does not feel substantial enough to be real book. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction.

Jenkins started strongly but weakened, along with the. 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. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. Standard nonfiction business, political science, psychology, history, etc. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. Aug 15, 2019 average word count for this book genre. Nonfiction selfhelp or christian living generally are about 40,00050,000 words long.

Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. You would be wise to come close to these suggested manuscript lengths. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. I heard 10,000 words can be accepted as an e book at a short length at least for non fiction. So 50,000 words is the minimum for a non fiction book. I asked agents elizabeth pomada and michael larsen of larsen pomada literary agency to add their thoughts to the subject. On average, when writing a memoir should not exceed 90,000 words and that is a stretch when it comes to memoir word count we recommend memoirs be between 45,000 to 80,000 words in order to maintain intrigue and reduce intimidation. The post lists a dizzying number of genres and a recommended word count range for each. In fact, word counts for these books run between 40,000 to 50,000 words. May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction.

Aug 05, 2019 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. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. 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. All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be. But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. Book size is often based on how thick the spine will be and how it will stand out in a bookstore although things are changing.

Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. A word count that is much higher than the average range tells the agent or editor your work probably needs to be tightened. Your chapter length has to work well with the overall word count of the book short chapters create an even distribution of both content and action. How many words in a novel and word counts for other types. You would be wise to come close to these suggested. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. This 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. According to chuck sambuchino see below for word count. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Ya novels are rarely over 75k, historical novels go up to 120k, ditto speculative fiction. The smaller your trim size, the more pages will be required for your content. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words.

If you are currently working on your manuscript, youve probably wondered how long your book should be or what the word count of your manuscript should be. A word count that is much lower than the acceptable range alerts the agent or editor that your novel or nonfiction book probably hasnt been adequately developed. Generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count. Jun 15, 2017 this is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. Id guesstimate that non fiction books generally yes, this is very rough run perhaps 150450 pages, and at about 350 wdpage that works out to something like 50150k words. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. The left behind series original books, not including the prequel, 19952007 by tim lahaye and jerry b. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. My own past research on ya word count turned up 5080,000 as an average guideline.

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. 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. A good way to gauge appropriate length is to check out similar books for comparison. 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. Apr 08, 2020 in fact, word counts for these books run between 40,000 to 50,000 words. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a word count guideline. And this ebook page length differs significantly depending on the book genre. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. As an editor, i cant tell you how many times ive turned down a manuscript because of excessive word counts. By 2017, however, that number has dropped to 273 pages.

Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsper. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. There is an important question that needs to be answered in your book proposal in the manuscript status section. Speaking from the agenting end, we can usually tell a beginning novelist when their projects word count is outside conventional numbers. While theres no reliable statistic, heres an interesting post on word count from the blog of former agent colleen lindsay. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count. Think carefully before you declare a word count in your. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing stack. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. If yes, then most publishers still work on specific word count lengths for books so youll probably be aiming for around 60,00080,000 words for nonfiction. And a typical howto nonfiction book might need between 7 and 12.

Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a non fiction book. How many words in a novel and word counts for other types of. As previously discussed, there are different requirements for both fiction and nonfiction genres. While average word length is 50,000 to 80,000 words, this genre has so much variety that word count depends on the book and its intended audience. If youre new to selfpublishing on amazon and wondering, just how much should i write for my kindle book. This is due in large part to the variety of subgenres within it and the trend for a book series with an ever greater word count. Sep 06, 2014 according to chuck sambuchino see below for word count. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to. Most traditional publishers will place restrictions on an author and require that the manuscript not exceed a specified word count, unless special concessions are made. This information is important whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction.

Mar 17, 2010 i am working on a book about my experience with losing a 9 year old cat to lymphoma. Im going to write about my experience and not worry too much about the word count. A recommended wordcount might be 15002000 words but, more. Generally speaking, traditional publishers expect completed nonfiction book manuscripts to be between 50,000 to 75,000 words.

The grandfather of modern christian fiction, in his steps by charles m. So lets begin our calculations by focusing on word count first. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Authors often ask me about average word lengths for their manuscripts.

Oct 26, 2018 in a nutshell, the trim size dictates your page count. Jul 23, 2012 the average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. Recently i got asked this question, what is the ideal length word count wise for my first book. If your manuscript is on the short side, make this clear when pitching to a publisher and give solid.

In 2011, the average length of a bestselling nonfiction book was 467 pages, but that dropped to 273 pages in 2017. Discover what size your book should be and if thats comparable to the standard book sizes in publishing. With that in mind, ive tried to put together the definitive post on word count for fiction novels, young adult, middle grade, childrens books and even memoir. A typical nonfiction book ranges between 55,000 and 80,000 words. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. But for mainstream ya it is always best to stick to under 80k.

Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. There are a few book word count guidelines for each genre, but these arent hard and fast rules. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. Books in this genre are also often gag gifts or are meant to be facetious. Jul 24, 2009 my upperlevel ya novel is 211 pages, 61,078 words, tnr 12 pt. This is a lot harder because its not a specific field im receiving back i have to scrape the results and do some crazy parsing of the data. Oftentimes, professional editing will cut down the unnecessary information so your memoir is the appropriate word count. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. The best thing that you can do is look over comparable books and try to judge word count by their size, average wordspage, and illustration content. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books.