A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time. The series has 147 unique povs and 1,379 total povs, including the prequel, new spring. But remember, this is more of a guideline than a rule. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. Or to put it another way every chapter needs a three line plot. Early readers are the earliest chapter stories that a kid can get. So the length of these affects the pacing of your story, and the way. In fact, the majority of printed books are turned into ebooks. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count.
Word count for novels and childrens books at the guide to literary agents blog. Words counts of bestselling novels better novel project. The authors had sold between 10 copies and 2 million copies of their chapter books. What is the average number of words per chapter for each. The average across a sample of 50 books in august 2015 showed 172 words per kindle edition normalized page. Youll use the word count in your word document to calculate book page count. Im a little confused about the word count for chapter books. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words.
The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Ideally, you want to give your reader something she knows. However, i understand that the length of twilight is unusually long for a debut novel.
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 bookbooks over the 110k word count are usually considered epics. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. To give you a general idea of the average chapter length, the range is usually between 3,000 to 5,000 words. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsperline count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted then. Before we discuss the best word count of a chapter, lets first break.
Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. 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. How many words are in an average chapter in a novel. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. Every category will have an average length, including childrens books, young adult, business books, etc. The author selling the most copies was a scholastic author published only in softcover hello, scholastic school. Secondly, writers dont have to fit their word count into generic set amounts. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. First of all, find your word count in word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen. The books are written from different points of view povs. 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.
Try it on some books with chapter lengths you like, and dont be surprised if it. From a conference, paula sadler had given out a handout that said the word count could be between 5,000 to,000 words. You shouldnt set manuscript guidelines for yourself on chapter length. The one im targeting would be the younger audience around ages 6 to 9. Chapters for his first and bestknown novel the notebook average about 3,200 wordsthe perfect length for casual readers. James patterson along came a spider 106,465 black friday 92,395 cradle and all 69,025 kiss the girls 103,073 popular novel word count the worlds largest word count encyclopedia. That left me with 66 logos word lists, each giving me every originallanguage word in a given book of the bible. 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. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done.
Why chapter length matters more than you think medium. If you are writing a standard length novel, aim for 80,000 to 95,000 words. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. It is feasible to count the number of words in a published chapter. Never write a chapter longer than 4,000 words bookfox. Each chapter in your book tells a ministory that forwards your overall plot. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. Readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. 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.
Perkins agency in new york says its much easier to market a firsttime novelists book if the word count falls between 80,000 and 100,000 words, or roughly 300 doublespaced, typed pagesthe average novel length. If youre a new author, id recommend staying on the shorter side, perhaps around the 75,000 word mark. Theyre very short in terms of manuscript length 1,500 words max but are broken up into either chapters or vignettes that will give the reader the feeling of reading a book with real chapters in it. 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. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. New writers tend to assume that a chapter must be a certain set length in order to maintain the average novel length of around 80,000 95,000 words, but in truth, chapters can be as long or as short as you need them to be. The wheel of time main series consists of fourteen books and a prequel. Thats generally considered enough information to make a reader feel like an update was worth it, its long enough for most people to read in under ten minutes, its mobiledevice friendly, and its plenty of time for things to happen. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has 17 chapters with titles, and about 4560 words per chapter. This averages to about 22 to 23 chapters per novel, with the average chapter length around 4,280 words. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length.
So, whats the sweet spot for an average chapters word count and. Your target audience for these is kids ages 4 to 8. Counting chickens a few words about word counts at hope vestergaards site. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. There are no hardandfast rules on how long or short a chapter needs to be. You can use comparable, successful books as models to determine the length you book should be.
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. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. Each book section below details the breakdown of these points of view as a word count and as a percentage. So that usually includes everything from chapter books, to middle grade, to young adult novels. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. I built one logos word list like this for every single book of the bible. The answer is that there is not a fixed length or a precise word count you should follow when creating chapters for your book. An ebook could be 3,000 words or as long as a fulllength book.
Eye of the world was one of the more normally distributed book in terms of chapter wordcount, which essentially means it had a mostcommon chapter length and a comparable number of chapters that were longer or shorter the dragon reborn was rightskewed, which means there was a heavy distribution of. Before you decide your average chapter length, its a good idea to think about the purpose behind dividing a book into chapters. So childrens book manuscript chapter length is a big question that ive received many times about all sorts of childrens books that have chapters. The important thing is that your length fits your book. That was the formula in the good old days when courier was the only typeface and typewriters were king. That number actually lines up pretty well with the data we have on this, but again, that number should neither be. Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count.
As far as length, popular memoirs range quite a bit from about 60,000 words to 120,000 or more. 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. As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. Search for word count totals in books word counters. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. James patterson word count popular novel word count. 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. Well, youll put the book down when you get to the end of this chapter, you reason. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words.
To find pretty much any kids ya word count, you can use the ar bookfinder. You wont get exact, but youre wondering whether 35k is reasonable, so you dont need exact. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. From picture books to ya information to get you started at.
Sharp objects has a word count of 80,565 and my utility calculates it at 80,7. 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. Write as much as it takes to tell the story, and no more. 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. The chapter by chapter breakdown sections lists the povs in order by. If youd like some guidelines, you can assume that the average nonfiction book is 50k words, and that they have 12 chapters, so around 4k words would be an average chapter length. If the word count of twilight is disregarded, the average becomes around 88,625. Click librarian or teacher and then search for books like yours click on the. Writing chapter books a look at the numbers hannah holt. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. For full length novels on wattpad, the average or recommended length is generally 20003000 words per chapter. Beginning writers often ask how long the chapters in the novel they are working on should be. The overall average for all five books is 5145 wordschapter 1. Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count.
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