Keep in mind that these word counts are guidelines. One thing we teach here at Self-Publishing School is that you must first know the rules before you can confidently break them. Still not sure where to start? Check recommended word and page counts for multiple ages of varied audiences using the calculator below.
Once you have that, you can break your total words needed for your novel down into monthly, weekly, and daily writing goals. Disclosure: Some of the links above may contain affiliate partnerships, meaning, at no additional cost to you, Self-Publishing School may earn a commission if you click through to make a purchase. While she's not whipping up content here, she's creating her own life and teaching others how to over at Own Your Ordinary , hanging out with her dog, and eating something with cheese!
Give her a follow: Twitter Instagram Facebook Youtube. We help you save time, money, and headaches through the book, writing, marketing, and publishing process by giving you the proven, step-by-step process and accountability to publish successfully. All while allowing you to maintain control of your book—and its royalties. Learn to publish a book to grow your impact, income, or business!
Drop a comment with your own tips, advice, or thoughts on this blog post — we may even update the post with your ideas! Knowledge sharing is how we all get better. Your email address will not be published. Business Builder. Career Fiction. FREE Training. Book Outline Template. Author Help Center. Skip to content. Pin 2K. How many words are in a novel? After all… Writing too many words in your novel is just as embarrassing as not writing enough.
Because yes, different types of books require different book lengths. Your Genre. Your Audience. Enter your details below to get your personalized word and page counts for your book! Why are you writing a book I'm writing a book to grow my business I'm not interested in building a business.
I'm writing a book to make an impact. I want to write a quality fiction book that entertains people. Hard to say. Neither can we know what every aspiring writer thinks, but, online anyway, most do not give that impression. Most writers who blog and comment seem determined NOT to be an exception, and strive to find out and conform to all sorts of rules and commands and advice. This article and our comments contain examples of such caution.
Writers and people in general fear the exceptional, in themselves and others. Thank you for all these lovely comments that allowed me to procrastinate for a few more minutes from actually writing. This is a fair beginners number guide. All this is excellent information to keep for reference, but I am wondering about short stories in an anthology. How many words in an anthology might be economically publishable?
How many stories included? How many words in an average story included in an anthology? Thanx for your time and trouble.
The thing you have to keep in mind is the cost of production. You may enjoy an page story just as much as a page story, but when you get to the checkout, do you want to have two stories for your money, or one? Uh, no. Word count is negotiable. If the publisher has a convincing argument for cutting a passage or two, the book will be shorter. If it has areas that need further explanation the word count will go up.
Keep an open mind and make your case. I think that editors and publishers have specific expectations about the length of the novel more than readers do. Many of the most popular recent books are well over , words. I just finished Pachinko, which is over pages long, and A Little Life, which is pages long.
Readers tell me that they like getting lost in a book. Many readers just want a story that keeps them reading! Not a memoir. However, the good news is: any writer on here can prove Blake wrong. If you think a ,word memoir will make it past the agent, do it! But Blake is trying to give everyone here some guidelines. No commenter has suggested a , word memoir. Most of Mr. Clearly different editors have different guidelines.
Hi Ann, can you give me an example of a published , word novel? So a , word count makes that novel somewhere around 1, pages.
So you simply have a better shot of getting published if your novel is under , words. Shantaram David Gregory Roberts , The Mountain Shadow same author , and 1Q84 Murakami are 3 of my favorite recent books and all hover around , words.
Murakami worked up to it. Roberts probably got lucky that someone took the time to give a first novel of length that kind of attention. Shantara is listed at pages, that puts it around , words.
The Mountain Shadow is a little shorter, listed at pages, making that around , words. Even 1q84 is listed at 1, pages, or about , words. All extremely long novels, especially considering most novels I pick up in the New Release scection hover at about 80, or less. But still a ways away from , words. As you stated the above novels must be exceptional works or extremely established authors, or both, to get published at that length. I think one of the issues people have is mistaking an exception for a rule.
Just because an exceptional author gets their , word space odyssey with their goldfish as the protagonist published everyone assumes word counts irrelevant. Page number is a terrible way to estimate word count as it depends on the size of the pages, the font size, the font used spacing, leading etc.
So to be specific — Shantaram is , words. The Mountain Shadow is , words. So yes all are under , words, but barely. Most published books average closer to words per page than On the opposite end of the spectrum, there were also 13 books longer than , words and one over ,!
The average best-selling historical fiction novel on Amazon is around , words, just over the , words we recommend as the max for a first-time author. There were only a handful of historical fiction novels under 60, words, and the top 10 books in this genre averaged over , words.
The average best-selling horror novel is around , words. To reiterate, first-time authors should not exceed , words in their first book unless it is fantasy or sci-fi. One novel stood far and away in the title for the longest horror story and, for that matter, all standalone stories. Can you guess which one? The correct answer is The Stand by Stephen King, one of the masters of the genre, weighing in at , words. As you can imagine, the top genre fiction books had a smattering of every subject.
Nevertheless, I was a bit surprised to see a lengthy ,word book on the Roman Empire make the list. It serves as a reminder to write about your passions, even if they seem niche. Of the many genres, this one is relatively consistent in what works for readers. The top for this category had the most negligible difference between the shortest book and the longest book.
Combing through the numbers, I made an interesting discovery. While science fiction stories tend to be pretty long, when compiling this list, the 1 seller in sci-fi was only 30, words which decreased the average. Fun fact here: All 7 of the Harry Potter books are still in the top 20 of this genre over 13 years after Harry Potter, and the Deathly Hallows was released.
The average best-selling mystery, thriller, or suspense novel is a slightly shorter 91, words. While almost all of the novels in this category topped the 70,word mark, all 6 books from the Nameless series by Dean Koontz made the list.
Each of the books in the series is under 20, words. At the time of this writing, no book on the list was published before However, the top 10 in the bestseller list all ran slightly longer than this, coming in at just under , words on average.
I found Erotica to be a unique category for 2 reasons. First, this genre had, by far, the most extensive range in word count among the top books, fluctuating all the way from 5, to , Secondly, erotica had the most boxed collections in the top of any genre — almost 20 collections made the list.
Most of these longer works were collections instead of standalone stories. The shortest story in this category? Only 4, words. If, after seeing all of this data, you are looking for actionable ways to increase your word count, here are some of the most effective tips:. If you suddenly realize your book is twice the length you need, here are some questions and suggestions to consider:.
How many words does a page book have? A page book contains about , words when printed. The number of pages can also vary based on the size of the font. Formatting your book can feel overwhelming, which is why Kindlepreneur users prefer Vellum. Who better to trust for design help than former Pixar employees? Want even more ideas and details? Kindlepreneur has an in-depth video on the right number of words per page for your book. Check it out below. Using the charts above, you should now be able to pinpoint a more precise range for the length of your novel.
It's worth noting that some books find success in multiple genres. I'd encourage you to write with your ideal readers in mind and simply enjoy any success your book happens to find in non-target genres.
Good luck, and happy writing! Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. Titling your book can be hard…really hard. As you go through choosing your book title, use this checklist as your guide and make sure you have a title that will sell! Interesting Article. I write Romance in several sub-genres and find it differs in these areas considerably.
Conversation among small publishers is to target 75K for a full novel but the emphasis is not so much word count as content. No surprises there. The story ends where it ends.
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