Average christian book word count

In the first book i tried to write my chapters were about 500 words long. 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. What is the average number of actual words in comic books. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and. A fullservice literary agency that focuses on books for the christian market. This tool is helpful for all authors everywhere who want to figure out how many pages their final book will contain based on their current word count. These numbers are pulled from the original languages using logos bible softwareyou can see how i did it below. If you have 6 panels, stick to a maximum of 35 words per panel. Go out and find similar books to the one you want to write and figure out how many words are in the book.

Putting it through our production planning spreadsheet, for the three page sizes we use the most often, and using a generic design with an 11point font, i get. Generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count. When i considered this question for my book, i recalled a post by literary agent rachelle gardner outlining suggested word count totals for various types of books. Harry potter and the halfblood prince 168,000 words. This article suggests that essentially, it should be as long as it needs to be, meaning dont look at the word count, just get the story out then edit. In outlining your book in 3 easy steps, editor shawn coyne says, the average novel today is about 90,000 words. As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. 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 book books over the 110k word count are usually considered epics. Only if youre a major celebrity can you blow right through that word count and just keep going. I used the lexham hebrew bible and the nestlealand novum testamentum graece for these word counts.

The greater the word count the larger the book more sections and. How to write early readers, easy chapter books, and. I know fiction works on average come in at 60,000 but i really had no idea about. Know your content, know your mainline pitch and some possible permutations, create a highlevel outline, write a compelling chapter and sell that. The first alone has sold more than 120 million copies, and the rest have sold at least 65 million each.

Are you wondering what the word count for your book should be. How to use our book page count calculator select your word print size select the book genre enter your books word count. Over time, the word count diminished and volume 8 the mark. A christian book of about 33,000 words will likely produce how. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. But, he also mentions that the wizard of oz was 40,000 words. But typically, there is around 300 words per page in the body section of a book. What is a reasonable estimate for the minimum length, in word count, for a nonfiction book.

And of course, if youre in need of book editing, youll wonder how much it will cost. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Even if you dont have a word count yet, prompts are an excellent way to exercise the writing muscle. As a nonfiction writer myself, i know this is tough. How many pages would my manuscript be in paperback. The following statistics apply to the 1769 edition of the 1611 king james bible. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. If youre writing a feature or news article for a print publication, you might wonder what it means when an editor tells you that they need 10 column inches or 25 inches. 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. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document.

The di vinci code 2003 by dan brown is 8,380 words. Novelty books include popups, puzzles, pulltabs and other interactive features. 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. Frequently asked questions on getting published how can i get the book ive written published. New christian writers often ask how many words their book should contain.

If you want to write a memoir, for example, look at four or five similar memoirs and determine their wordcount. This question came in as a reader comment on one of the earlier blog posts. Would you consider a post on memoir guidelines, since memoir falls somewhere between fiction and nonfiction in many ways. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. So if youre a writer looking to boost sales of your new book or if youre trying to place it on the highly coveted new york times best sellers list make sure you track your word count closely. Im writing ya fantasy and i keep reading that word counts for fantasy should be high because of. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. Twilight has 24 titled chapters, or 26 if you count the preface and epilogue, and about 4580 words per chapter. 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.

I have checked and doubledchecked his counts with a manual count in 10 of the 66 books and they all match perfectly. A publisher with a production department that knows what theyre doing can estimate book length from a manuscript formatted in courier 12point, 1 margins, 25 lines per page. You would be wise to come close to these suggested. A christian book of about 33,000 words will likely produce. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you 41,212. Ive put together word counts for every book of the bible.

We explain two easy methods to estimate your books page count. Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words. The old man and the sea was about 25 to 30,000 words. A devotional is a unique form of christian writing. The grandfather of modern christian fiction, in his steps by charles m. There are a few book word count guidelines for each genre, but these arent hard and fast rules. Excluding endnotes and index, the book has about 200 pages of text, which means its total word count is about 74,000 words. 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. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute.

Once youve finished a draft of your book, the natural next step is to look for a book editor. This is a question that many beginning writers have. The writing market has changed a lot since i first got published. How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. The christian writers institute newsletter list or 99 cents if you want to read it. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. How to do word count for newspaper articles pen and the pad. Obviously, my point is not that you should submit a first book of anywhere near 200,000 words. Still unsure of how long to make your nonfiction book. Since 2011, the average length of a bestseller has dropped steadily from year to year. Each page contains about 34 lines, with an average word count of 11 words per line, thus 375 words per page. 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. Search for word count totals in books word counters. The word describes a specific kind of book or magazine you may use during your daily quiet time.

In some cases, these books will have no words at all. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. But, most nonfiction publishers want to be sold the concept, and therefore be able to discuss the direction of the project, before you write the book. If your book falls within the standard preferred wordcount range, its one less. How to write and publish early readers and chapter books.

All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as the definitive word count you must reach in your book. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. As you write more and more your word count will probably go up for each chapter because you become a stronger writer and are able to go more in depth in each chapter. Standard word counts for books publishing with kindle. Im going to give you some information here, but first i want you to know why this is important. 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. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. The daily word counts of 39 famous authors writers write. The 1 thing you need to do to write a new york times. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference.

Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit. So if you write a 35,000 word manuscript, your formatted book will likely be around 140 pages. Harry potter and the deathly hallows 198,000 words. 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. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000. The numbers below are taken from her post, how long is your book. It was too difficult to count words in the days before word processors with an. This question about average word count was on my mind as well, when i started writing my book. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. Frequently asked questions getting published meg cabot.

Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has 17 chapters with titles, and about 4560 words per chapter. And as you can see, it varies, depending on the story. The word count to aim for with this type of book is usually between 500 and 600 words. Most published books average closer to 300 words per page than 200.

Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. 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. Most blogs and writer websites had the moreorless the same advice forget the length and the average word count of your novel. For example, if an author has to write a minimum or maximum amount of words for an article, essay, report, story, book, paper, you name it.

On average the total word count clocks in at 200250 words. It is a short piece of inspiration, not instruction. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. If you want to learn how to write a book, sign up for our online course. And remember, keeping to word counts is important, but what makes or breaks your chances with a publisher is.

American christian fiction writers classify a novella as between. Never pad your manuscript just to meet a wordcount guideline. Information on writing and publishing in the early reader and chapter book market. Generally a 50,000 word novel would be the minimum word count. The question of how long your manuscript should be is sometimes hard to answer because different publishers have different guidelines.

Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. That was the formula in the good old days when courier was the only typeface and typewriters were king.

Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. If the word count of twilight is disregarded, the average becomes around 88,625. If yours is too short, restructure it and add more tightly written stuff. All word counts are the work of computer programmer dave whitinger. There are many different different paths to getting published. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable. 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. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. You might say, but with ebooks the word count doesnt matter.