Average word length of a chapter in a book

You can use comparable, successful books as models to determine the length you book should be. More recently, though, another colleague, who also wrote a noteworthy book, dismissed this worry of mine about book length as groundless. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. Zi thought less in terms of pages than word count, and suggested i work toward a goal of 100,000 words. When i started writing three years ago, the mg word count i kept hearing was no more than 30,000 words. Although hir book was just under 300 pages, which is more of an industry standard, it seems. Chapters for his first and bestknown novel the notebook average about 3,200 wordsthe perfect length for casual readers. You dont have to pick a number like 80,000 and then divide it by 30 chapters to give you 2500. Oftentimes, professional editing will cut down the unnecessary information so your memoir is the appropriate word count. Do you want to publish a wide format bookwith inspiring quotes down the side margins. Oct 18, 2017 the average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. Jun 26, 2017 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. 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.

I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. May 12, 2012 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. That number actually lines up pretty well with the data we have on this, but again, that number should neither be a goal, nor a constraint. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. Words counts of bestselling novels better novel project. Never write a chapter longer than 4,000 words bookfox. Before we discuss the best word count of a chapter, lets first break. The hunger games has 27 untitled chapters, and about 3700 words per chapter. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. 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.

Look for your chapters to have those similar elements. 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. Jul 18, 20 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 an average chapter length of 11,300 words. Try it on some books with chapter lengths you like, and dont be surprised if it. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. Oct 22, 2010 early readers are the earliest chapter stories that a kid can get. This means in a novel, a chapter can usually run from 628 novel pages or 314 word pages. Naturally, a poem or a chapter less childrens book would follow different rules. May 11, 2009 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. Its also worth noting that the average word count figure can vary by genre.

As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. How to write early readers, easy chapter books, and. When you find those commercial breaks, end your chapter and start a new one. I just wrote a prologue that ended up right at 500 words, and i wanted to know the same. Jul 23, 2012 of course, a printed book probably needs to be at least 100125 pages in length. Aug 05, 2019 before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. I shoot for an average of 2500 words per scene, so if i were writing your book. However, many authors, frustrated with the low price of ebooks, have taken to writing ebooks that are between 40,000 and 50,000.

An ebook could be 3,000 words or as long as a fulllength book. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. If youre drawn to writing much shorter tales, the ideal is to make them part of a series or to link them in some other way so that you can publish several of them in something vaguely novelsized. This averages to about 22 to 23 chapters per novel, with the average chapter length around 4,280 words. Writing chapter books a look at the numbers hannah holt. Jun 05, 2017 so childrens book manuscript chapter length is a big question that ive received many times about all sorts of childrens books that have chapters. Depending on the writing genre, word count in book chapters can vary. Armed with these word counts, i now have a range of lengths that have been proven popular.

I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. Why does the length of a typical novel fall in the 80. So, whats the sweet spot for an average chapters word count and. Oct 03, 2017 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.

Your target audience for these is kids ages 4 to 8. Analyzing chapter lengths in fantasy fiction creativity. Most manga stories run for as long as their mangaka manga author wants them to, or as long as their readership demands. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. Can be publisher specific, ranging from 3,000 to absolute max 5,000. That means your manuscript must be at least 3540,000 words long. What is the average chapter length in a young adult novel. While many agents say they wont reject a book solely based on length, many also say they take word count into consideration. Romance novels often run between 50,000 and 90,000 words on average. Varies according to the book order of the phoenix is by far the longest, but the average chapter in philosophers stone, for example, is between 3,500 and 5,000 words. For that reason, writing a long, lengthy book just about their.

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. Why chapter length matters more than you think medium. For full length novels on wattpad, the average or recommended length is generally 20003000 words per chapter. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. Oct 27, 2018 i use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. May 14, 2018 readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. The fault in our stars, by john green, 65,750 words, 25 chapters, average. How to calculate your books length before writing helping. That was the formula in the good old days when courier was the only typeface and typewriters were king. 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. 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.

That number actually lines up pretty well with the data we have on this, but again, that number should neither be. Let me tell you about how i had to remove my membership from a childrens writer forum because i responded to a newbie about this topic. Nonfiction requires more thinking time from your reader, so you need to consider the role of. Before you decide your average chapter length, its a good idea to think about the purpose behind dividing a book into chapters. Everything you need to know about book chapters scribe writing. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. This article how to write a bestselling business book has a good, concise, logical answer on the ideal length today for a business book less than 100 pages. But while the length of a novel is to a large extent up to its writer, lengths may also vary by subgenre.

Ive heard and read several reasons for this, including. How many words on average is a biography comprised of. Another interesting way to find a good chapter length i think, would be to sit down and read a book from the first chapter, for about 510 minutes, or however long you wish your chapters to be, and see how many words you have read in that amount of time. Sep 18, 2017 in comparison, the database gives an average length of 89,000 words for adult fiction excluding fantasy, smack in the middle of the commonlycited range of 80,000100,000. The average length of the novels we publish varies, but is almost never fewer than 80,000 words. Ideally, you want to give your reader something she knows. The average chapter length in my book is roughly nine pages. According to this cool site, the one minute manager, talked about i. Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively.

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. In other words, let your content dictate your chapter length, not the other way around. 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 195,011 doctor sleep. While 50,000 words is a fairly firm minimum, plenty of ya books reach up to 100,000 words, with a sweet spot at 75,00080,000. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. Sep 20, 2019 its okay if your first draft is over 90,000 words. Less than 100 pages and it becomes difficult for a printer to print the title of the book on the spine. On average, how long is a childrens book for children. Paragraphs have no specific sentence or word count. We can be confident keeping most midtoend scenes between 300 and 0 words. The authors had sold between 10 copies and 2 million copies of their chapter books. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book.

If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. In fact, the majority of printed books are turned into ebooks. Mar 20, 2020 every category will have an average length, including childrens books, young adult, business books, etc. So that usually includes everything from chapter books, to middle grade, to young adult novels. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable. Oct 10, 2016 the lengths vary hugely from title to title, but chapters released weekly seem to average 1620 pages while chapters released monthly average 3650 pages. Also, the chapters are evenly divided into 3 titled parts. 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. Analyzing chapter lengths in fantasy fiction creativity hacker. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words.

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. The collection as a whole posted an average chapter length of 6,100 words. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. Childrens book writers must adhere to strict industry standards for. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. Romance is a unique genre because the plot is all about two characters and their adventure with one another. Chapters in books for younger readers often err on the shorter side, while fantasy. It is feasible to count the number of words in a published chapter. This makes me wonder if publishers choose book sizes based on average scene length, to create the illusion of a certain pace. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range.