In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by. Apr 03, 2016 and i was surprisedand happy to learn that there really are no norms and patterns with the most famous novels.
The list was revised in september 2010 in consultation with a number of us. If you know how long the book is, you can divide it into eighths to find the perfect timing for all your major turning points. Word counts of the most popular books in the world foster grant uk. One of my biggest problems as a publisher is having authors deliver more than was agreed to. Depending on your genre, having too many or too little can not only hurt your book sales, but also cause fewer 5star. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook.
Below is a short list of some famous novels and authors with their respective writing statistics. Synonyms for great lengths include far and wide, everywhere, all over, far and near, all around, everyplace, throughout, all over the place, broadly and high and low. Publishers and literary award societies typically consider a novellas word count to be between 15,000 and 40,000 words, although definitions vary. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. I remember reading some westerns in high school and, if i. If you dont know how to find your documents word count, this article shows you how. Sep 30, 2015 the best word counts for each genre are the same for both traditional publishing and selfpublishing. Readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Im trying to write a program that takes two functions.
Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. Famous books and their word counts freelance writing gigs. Jan 11, 2011 authors often ask me about average word lengths for their manuscripts. Shamelessly cribbed from classic short stories and reorganized by word count from shortest to longest for comparison purposes. While theres no reliable statistic, heres an interesting post on word count from the blog of former agent colleen lindsay. Of course, if you mean i can add together the word counts of all genres in the novel im writing, then thats another story.
Jul 18, 2014 if you liked electric literatures game of books infographic that compared the length of a song of ice and fire to classic novels, you might enjoy this infographic created for cartridge discount. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. Albert gleizes circa 1923, his critical quote, seizing upon the dada practices to destroy words and syntaxis. A novella is a work of narrative prose fiction, longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to. Apr 23, 2018 few elements of the bookwriting process inspire such handwringing and teethgnashing as trying to constrain your novel within certain seemingly arbitrary bounds. A novel is usually defined as anything over 40,000 words.
However, it will be on the short side, as the average length of a novel hovers around 50,00070,000 words. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. There is a guideline for word lengths that writers and publishers uses. Whether youre just curious about how many words are in these books or youre writing a book and want to compare the length of your novel to these famous tomes, then read on to find the word counts of famous books and series. Synonyms for great lengths at with free online thesaurus, antonyms, and definitions. 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. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Nonfiction picture book 3,000 words max, but closer to 1,000 to 2,000 words. Word lengths and prices information for books author cia.
It has fewer words than the other six books, making it the shortest book in the series. Famous novels have been extremely long, like 530,000 words for victor hugos les miserable s or 420,000 words for george r. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. The word counts of some famous novels for comparison. And i believe pams book is good enough to one day be in that category. Were discussing short stories with the indy nanowrimo group this afternoon, and i thought it might help to have a word count chart similar. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to.
The list was revised in september 2010 in consultation with a number of us fiction editors, but. The best word counts for each genre are the same for both traditional publishing and selfpublishing. I built one logos word list like this for every single book of the bible. Nevertheless, you would be wise to come close to these suggested manuscript lengths. A story that is over 40,000 words is generally considered a novel. Some publishers vary, but mostly, here are the lengths and prices for books. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. Everything you need to know about novel word counts. In this modernday love story, girl likes boy, girl takes photo of boy and. Nov 11, 2016 marc leeds is the author of the indispensable new book, the vonnegut encyclopedia, a musthave for any fan of kurt vonnegut and his books.
Apr 05, 2015 most literary genres have expected word lengths, which have been driven by audiences in terms of their own expectations of the genre, as well as our the professionals expectations of them an obvious example for this. Yes, i have already taken into consideration the notion that books are as long as they need to be. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me. Also, heres another list i may swipe and add in here. Marc leeds is the author of the indispensable new book, the vonnegut encyclopedia, a musthave for any fan of kurt vonnegut and his books.
The best word count for your selfpublished novel self. Lengths quotes quotes about lengths yourdictionary. However, that isnt to say that a shorter or longer book cant be a bestseller too. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Book length word count science fiction and fantasy world. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. Never has a group disposed of such equipment for saying nothing, and never has a group gone to such lengths to reach the public and bring nothing. Jan 08, 2018 you can see there is a lot of variation in word length, especially in epic high fantasy, where books can stretch beyond 200,000 words or sink as low as 50,000.
If i tell you that my book is 70,000 words, and send you an 800 page correctly formated ms the 1. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. I found an infographic showing the word count of famous books, and its interesting to see the comparison. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. 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.
Most memoirs need to be in the 70,000 to 100,000word range. Writing stack exchange is a question and answer site for the craft of professional writing, including fiction, nonfiction, technical, scholarly, and commercial writing. I once entered a competition that set a maximum word limit of 80,000 for young adult novels and 100,000 for adult novels. For a few examples, lets start on the low end of word count where we have the great gatsby clocking in at approx. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. Word counts of famous short stories organized by hawthorn mineart, under writing. The books are wellloved all over the world because of well, magic.
This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is advisable. The main reason im writing this is to inquire about the lengths of some famous novels, not in pages, but word count. Average sentence lengths of famous novels and authors.
Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. Word counts for childrens books i received a request awhile ago to do a post on word counts for different age categories in childrens lit. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book. How to calculate your books length before writing helping. When youre working with ebooks, word count is more important than page length, as the latter can change due to different font sizes on various ereaders. Sep 20, 2019 how many words in a novel vary depending on genre, audience, and the story itself but in general, the average words in a novel is between 60,000 and 90,000 words for most genres. Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isnt novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much. However sometimes, like today, the reverse happens.
Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. And as you can see, it varies, depending on the story. The average word count for a typical novel ranges anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words, with the average hanging around 90,000. May 14, 2018 readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. The first book, harry potter and the sorcerers stone, has 76,944 words.
Of the 161 stories listed, 3081 is the median word count number in the middle and 4052 is the average word count. 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. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Thats why the traditional submission formats exist. The post lists a dizzying number of genres and a recommended word count range for each. Its about 80,000 words right now, and may have concluded the first quarter of the overall tale.
Keep the word count in mind, but more importantlytell your story in the best way possible. If you are an author of a book or know of a books accurate wordcount, contact me. Oct 18, 2017 in any case, to see how authors use this tactic to set their pacing, we also mapped out the word count of every chapter in four famous books. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. Word lengths of famous books my novel has about 84,000 words. There are no hardandfast rules when it comes to what word count a novel in a particular genre should be.
In any case, to see how authors use this tactic to set their pacing, we also mapped out the word count of every chapter in four famous books. What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. Chapter book this varies widely, depending on grade and reader level, usually starting at 4,000 words and 15,000 words max. If you liked electric literatures game of books infographic that compared the length of a song of ice and fire to classic novels, you might enjoy this infographic created for cartridge discount. Nov, 2009 so many people today rely on the word count given by their software program, but when you go to print a physical book, the pages matter. Only if youre a major celebrity can you blow right through that word count and just keep going. Most literary genres have expected word lengths, which have been driven by audiences in terms of their own expectations of the genre, as well as our the professionals expectations of them an obvious example for this. The popular romance of chinese dynasties by cai dongfan. Put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. If the average length is 300 pages, youre looking at a 75,000 word manuscript approximately one reason its harder for a new author to sell a 140,000 word manuscript is the size of the book.
The average word count for a typical novel ranges anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words, with the average hanging. The graphic looks at the length of some famous novels, poems, and plays from literary history. However, paranormal and ya fantasy books appear to remain largely in the 80120,000 range, with books targeted at children or younger teenagers sometimes dipping to 5070,000. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner. Authors often ask me about average word lengths for their manuscripts. Anyone who already has an audience can get away with a longer memoir. Leeds, cofounder and founding president of the kurt. This article on writers digest also suggests a length of around 100115,000, and takes a good look at desirable word count ranges for different genres.
Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. Im just saying that some things are more important than word counts. Lengths definition and meaning collins english dictionary. Since opinions vary greatly, i did some research to verify the numbers in my head. Obviously, my point is not that you should submit a first book of anywhere near 200,000 words. This post covers why word count matters for novels, the standard word count ranges for various genres, and the word counts of some famous. Since this was the first book, rowling had more time to edit the book and make the writing more concise. Publishers and literary award societies typically consider a novellas word count to be between 15,000 and 40,000 words, although definitions vary the english word novella derives from the italian novella, feminine of novello, which means new. The longest novel is artamene ou le grand cyrus, originally published. That left me with 66 logos word lists, each giving me every originallanguage word in a given book of the bible. Jun 07, 2017 when talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count.
This is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. Although, if its over 110,000 words, some may call it an epic, not a novel. Keep in mind that a few of these are translations of foreignlanguage novels, so the statistics will not be perfect for those. Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. 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. Lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, roald dahls charlie and the chocolate factory.
Duotrope a free writers resource listing over 3950 current fiction and poetry publications caps their search for short story publishers at 7,500 words, which means most publishers are looking for stories of less than that length. 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 books50% of books have fewer words and 50% of books have more words. 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. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. And i was surprisedand happy to learn that there really are no norms and patterns with the most famous novels. The english word novella derives from the italian novella, feminine of novello, which means new. Famous book series and novel word counts number of words. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. That said, if your book is around 40,000 words, youre in good company. For most publishers, a book is novel length when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words.