And for every book that sells 20,000, there is one that is a disaster. The average adult novel runs approximately 100,000 words while those in other categories run 80120,000 words. Nonfiction books also vary tremendously in word count. Having some reallife examples at your side, you should get a better sense of. Long book length at the other end of the spectrum a book of 80,000 to 100,000 words has significant heft, 320400 pages. Books that are written specifically for kindle or other digital platforms and ereaders especially can be shorter than print books. Amazons most sold charts rank books according to the number of copies sold and preordered through, amazon books stores, and books read through digital subscription programs once a customer has read a certain percentage roughly the length of a free reading sample. Using amazons number of words as a guide, 5,000 words would equal 26. But over the last 5 years, the number of pages has regressed to the point where only 200400 pages is now considered the upper limit of the book publishing spectrum. If a publisher prints 15,000 copies of a book and ships 10,000 copies, and six months later 8,000 copies are returned, then that book has only netted. What is the average number of pages in a book of fiction. 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. Keep in mind that the average compensation per book matters less the more books you sell, which depends on your business model.
Popular nonfiction like novels, these books fall into the 70,000 to 120,000word range. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. As previously discussed, there are different requirements for both fiction and non fiction genres. On average there are 233 words per page for a nonfiction book and 280 words per page for a fiction book on amazon. Your best bet is to figure out what books yours is comparable to, then sit down and count the words on 23 typical pages.
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. Im writing a non fiction book, detailing the unprecedented rise of the boise state broncos football program a reallife david, slaying reallife goliaths. The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of pages. Just remember, with so much diversity in non fiction, you have even less of. I know of an author with a very large publisher whose novel has sold only 1,087 copies in its lifetime. If you want to experiment with book sizes and the way they might impact your typesetting choices, the reedsy book editor allows you to do so for free. The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. You may decide that compensation isnt your end goal and your publication is more about creating a. My thoughts on this are not very popular, but i believe the answer is what my advanced writing teacher told me about paper length and i think that extends to books and novels as well. Short and punchy books are 40,000 to 60,000 words, but many nonfiction books are lengthy. A typical number is 12 to 18 but you might have 8 or even 25. If the content is stepbystep and high quality, 15 pages is enough for a 99 cent kindle book or a freebie used for lead generation. Writers digest recommends 80,000 to 89,999 words as a 100% safe range for literary, mainstream, womens, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller and horror. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages.
By 2017, however, that number has dropped to 273 pages. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. With longer books, you can get a rough count by adding up the number of words on an average page and multiplying by the total number of pages. Amazons most read charts rank titles by the average. Once you have a vision for your book small, standard, or wide formatyou can move on to the second step in deciding how many words you should write.
Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. If you do not use a lot of sidebars, bulleted and numbered lists, and boxed texts, your reader may be daunted by how long a chapter iseven if you have headers every few pages. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. The average book sells 3000 copies in its lifetime publishers weekly, 2006. One of the questions that new writers always ask is how long should my non fiction book be. Generally speaking, traditional publishers expect completed nonfiction book manuscripts to be between 50,000 to 75,000 words. Books on how to write proposals are often geared toward nonfiction writers. Pages by paperback uses an industry standard formula for english language publishing of taking the average number of words per page and multiplying it by the average number of characters per word five including a space, for six total, the product of which is then used to divide against the total character count of the project.
And, if you ask, these publishers are usually willing to report how many books were published. In this article im going to attempt to answer that question. Thats approximately 300 pages of doublespaced type. The number of books printed is based upon both projected and past sales. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. I remember reading some westerns in high school and, if i. The editor also provides four popular trim sizes for formatting 4.
Be aware that the word average means that for every book that sells 15,000, there is one that sells 5,000. In fact, the average nonfiction book on amazon is 10,000 words, which translates to 80 pages. But i also know of others who have sold over 500,000 copies. That decisionto design the book for an economical printing modelwas genius and partly responsible for its huge popularity. It should me no shorter or longer than it has to be. This is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. Nonfiction books tend to be shorter, and written in a way that they can be read in chunks. Do this for several books in your niche to get a targeted range. If youre concerned about the final page count for your book, you should know that the average 6. How to really make money as a book author even if you don.
It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. If your manuscript is on the short side, make this clear when pitching to a publisher and give solid. A word count guide for 18 book genres, including fiction and nonfiction. In all cases, you can find an author who has successfully pushed the envelope one way or another. Within 6 to 12 months of a book s shipping, most returns will have come in, so it usually takes at least 9 months from the time a book is published to know how many copies the book netted. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 to 75,000 words, but this can vary depending upon category. Sometimes this information is found on the book s page, or in a colophon. This entry was posted on monday, may 11th, 2009 at 11. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf.
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. The average traditionally published book which sells 3,000 in its entire lifetime in print only sells about 250300 copies its first year. To fill a page in word, you would need around 500 words, 1. If yes, then most publishers still work on specific.
That model is so popular that today, childrens picture books that are offset printed are still designed for printing the whole book on one sheet of paper. You receive an advance and 10% royalties on net profit from each book. You can follow any responses to this entry through the rss 2. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts.
It really depends on the topics of your chapters and how much your text is broken up. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. In 2011, the average length of a bestselling nonfiction book was 467 pages, but that dropped to 273 pages in 2017. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. Flick through to see if there are lots of short chapters creating lots of. I would echo everything that patricia said read successful memoirs and take notes, incorporate techniques used in fiction, and make sure.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site post navigation. I asked agents elizabeth pomada and michael larsen of larsen pomada literary agency to add their thoughts to the subject. How to set the retail price for your nonfiction book. The page doublespaced on the right fills less than half the page. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about. T he indie author chris fox coined the term potato chip chapters for easilydigestible book chapters of a certain size. The figure was found through looking at a number of books text stats, until brave new worlds 64,531 word count landed in the exact center of all books 50% of books have fewer words and 50% of books have more words. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. Calculate the number of pages using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. There are vastly different numbers for mass market paperback novels, tradepaperback original novels or trade non fiction, hardback original trade books, and for nontrade titles in any of a. Multiply up by the number of pages and get to a rough word count. The length of your book will depend on a number of considerations. Ive decided since i dont have an agent to do the bulk of the research and interviews first, then seek help, armed and ready. The average sales per title are utterly without meaning.