Average word count for a book chapter

Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. Most publishers like to see chapters that are in the 2,000 to 3,000word range. Now this doesnt mean there arent any guidelines in place.

To find pretty much any kids ya word count, you can use the ar bookfinder. Why chapter length matters more than you think medium. This is a 100% safe range for literary, mainstream, womens, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller and horror. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically written for the category. How many words are in an average chapter in a novel. This averages to about 22 to 23 chapters per novel, with the average chapter length around 4,280 words. The first book in each series below was the authors first. Between 80,000 and 89,999 words is a good range you should be aiming for. Writing middle grade a look at the numbers hannah holt. If you want to make it comfortable for them, count the length of a chapter in novels you like.

Armed with these word counts, i now have a range of lengths that have been proven popular. The average mean word count was about 53,000 words. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. Ive got 50k words word processor word count and im on my fifteenth chapter with six. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. The longest average chapter lengths were lord of the rings 7,500, prince of nothing 8,700, and the beefiest chapters were found in the black company, with. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book. 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. Fyi, my book is a ya historical based in 1099 rome.

Would you consider a post on memoir guidelines, since memoir falls somewhere between fiction and nonfiction in many ways. Im a little confused about the word count for chapter books. Chapters in books for younger readers often err on the shorter side, while fantasy. 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 statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. On average, when writing a memoir should not exceed 90,000 words and that is a stretch when it comes to memoir word count. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. The series has 147 unique povs and 1,379 total povs, including the prequel, new spring. Try it on some books with chapter lengths you like, and dont be surprised if it.

The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. And make sure you view a sample chapter to find out what your content will look like. As with everything else when it comes to writing a book, these are only guidelinesnot rules. Also, make sure your chapters are under 3,000 words. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year.

Its also worth noting that the average word count figure can vary by genre. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. The title with the shortest chapters, on average, was whirlwind in the thorn tree, averaging just 2,900 words each. We recommend memoirs be between 45,000 to 80,000 words in order to maintain intrigue and reduce intimidation. Each book section below details the breakdown of these points of view as a word count and as a percentage. There are plenty of books that purposefully play with the word counts of their chapters. My question is about novel structure and word counts. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. So as youre writing a book, a common question if often asked. Remember that a light novel is under 20,000 words but more than 15,000 words, so if ever wanting to publish it, be sure to convince the publisher that this is not a kids book. T he indie author chris fox coined the term potato chip chapters for easilydigestible book chapters of a certain size. Novelty books include popups, puzzles, pulltabs and other interactive features. Your article was a welcome relief to me since i cannot justify writing for the sake of adding to my word count if the story is already complete.

Or to put it another way every chapter needs a three line plot. The chapter by chapter breakdown sections lists the povs in order by. Analyzing chapter lengths in fantasy fiction creativity. Word counts of popular ya books as i started drafting my new wip a ya scifi thriller i began wondering what word count i should aim for. The word count at big five publishers had a slightly narrower range. I find it alarming, honestly, that the stats seem to be so low. Writing chapter books a look at the numbers hannah holt.

But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. It is feasible to count the number of words in a published chapter. 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. What is the average number of words you would generally put in a chapter. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. On a scale of one bad to ten excellent, chapter books rate their agents overall as an 8. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Many sites say the same thing and it makes me wonder a bit if im writing my own novel wrong. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. To give you a general idea of the average chapter length, the range is usually between 3,000 to 5,000 words.

I counted the number of words on page 7 of night whispers, then multiplied by the number of pages, then rounded, and so theres aout 4 words per book. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. The books are written from different points of view povs. How to write early readers, easy chapter books, and. Most middle grade novels are between 40,000 and 69,000 words long. But again as a surprise to me, dune was a close second, averaging just 3,800 words per chapter. When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words. The hunger games has 27 untitled chapters, and about 3700 words per chapter. Crossroads of twilight had an average viewpoint length that was six times greater than that of a memory of light. You wont get exact, but youre wondering whether 35k is reasonable, so you dont need exact. This means your memoir will average between 150 and 265 pages. Click librarian or teacher and then search for books like yours click on the.

Discover what size your book should be and if thats comparable to the standard book sizes in publishing. But remember, this is more of a guideline than a rule. I believe the word count has increased as she wrote more books. Childrens book manuscript chapter length consistency is what sort of keeps the engine of your pacing going. Never write a chapter longer than 4,000 words bookfox. Id guesstimate that nonfiction books generally yes, this is very rough run perhaps 150450 pages, and at about 350 wdpage that works out to something like 50150k words. Word count varied from 5,000 words to 40,000 words, with an average mean of 17,200 and a median word count of 8,500. Chapters for his first and bestknown novel the notebook average about 3,200 wordsthe perfect length for casual readers. Or do you just not care about how many words are in a chapter and just go with it like r. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid.

Can be publisher specific, ranging from 3,000 to absolute max 5,000. During the introductory month of the new system, the conversion of kenpc into the actual number of words in the book actual word count showed significant differences from one book to the other. Writing towards a word count might not work for everybody, but having a rough goal in mind certainly helps me when im sketching out chapters and undertaking my first draft. A long block of text that is not broken up into paragraphs, with no dialogue is hard to read even if its words or less.

Eye of the world was one of the more normally distributed book in terms of chapter wordcount. I am writing the last chapter of my childrens chapter book manuscript and am currently just shy of 23k. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. And when im reading, i definitely notice, you know, with my editorial clients, i have manuscripts in front of me all the time. 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. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. If this thread still going can someone tell me how many words is reasonable for a chapter im writing my first fantasy novel and worried if i have too short or to long of a chapter right now my first chapter word count is at 1,436 and in counting. Anything in this word count wont scare off any agent anywhere. The word count to aim for with this type of book is usually between 500 and 600 words. Do you have a set number that it must have or a max. The one im targeting would be the younger audience around ages 6 to 9. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. The average chapter length in my book is roughly nine pages. I definitely notice when a chapter is a lot shorter or a lot longer than sort of what has been established.

I use a book mark to remember where i was, but stop reading also in the middle of a chapter. James patterson along came a spider 106,465 black friday 92,395 cradle and all 69,025 kiss the girls 103,073. 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. A recommended wordcount might be 15002000 words but, more. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. On average i prefer a chapter of between and 3000 words, about 2000 the ideal but what matters more is how it is written. In some cases, these books will have no words at all, such as for the very small child who likes to feel the fluffy cotton tail. Though the average word count of a chapter is around 2,000 5,000 words, it all depends on your story. We explain two easy methods to estimate your books page count.

Information on writing and publishing in the early reader and chapter book market. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. 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. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. Each chapter is a mini story in its own right, so to work properly, just like any story, each chapter must have, as a bare minimum, a beginning, a middle, and an end. For writing i would conclude, that some readers like my mother use chapters to plan the time for reading. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book.

James patterson word count popular novel word count. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time. From a conference, paula sadler had given out a handout that said the word count could be between 5,000 to,000 words. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. The wheel of time main series consists of fourteen books and a prequel. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. As a nonfiction writer myself, i know this is tough. Its up to you within reason before you decide your average chapter length, its a good idea to think about the purpose behind dividing a book into chapters.