Book chapter word count

From a conference, paula sadler had given out a handout that said the word count could be between 5,000 to,000 words. Feb 15, 2017 as a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. This is a lot of information at a glance, so ill distill a few salient observations. Some of the above has been adapted from an earlier blog post and from a chapter in my free booklet word count is 6,000 book proposal tips and tricks it is free in pdf if you join the christian writers institute newsletter list or 99 cents if you want to read it on your kindle. That said, in general young adult books tend to be around 50,000 90,000 words. Unfortunately, they dont offer word count so ive created an algorithm based on the number of pages, genre, and the dimensions of the book. Now lets take a closer look at the recommended lengths for various book genres. Feb 05, 2021 word count for picture books the standard is text for 32 pages. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. Jan 08, 2018 total number of words in your word document divided by number of words per book page your page count so far then add in all the extra pages for your front matter, back matter, images, chapter titles, and partsection openers see method 1, above. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of.

And it may already be shifting toward smaller word counts. If your primary character is in first through third grade or ages 69, and is longer than 700 words, chances are you have a chapter book. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. How to write early readers, easy chapter books, and chapter. Naturally, a poem or a chapter less childrens book would follow different rules. Broccoli chronicles which will be published in december 2014 is a chapter book.

Why word count matters when you submit your book the. Childrens book types and suggested word counts go teen. The answer is that there is not a fixed length or a precise word count you should follow when creating chapters for your book. But remember, this is more of a guideline than a rule. 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. The one im targeting would be the younger audience around ages 6 to 9. Oct 02, 2017 on a scale of one bad to ten excellent, chapter books rate their agents overall as an 8. That means they can manipulate a 60,000 word book and a 90,000 word book to have the exact same page count. How many words in each book of the bible the holy word. Try it on some books with chapter lengths you like, and dont be surprised if it. Books that can be read by many ages are called crossover books. The abstract will appear on springerlink and be available with unrestricted access to facilitate online searching e. Nov 08, 2020 romantic plots now tend to be fun, fast reads.

Heres our word count guide for 18 different book genres. Jun 26, 2018 i have found the website dogobooks to be the most useful place to check the word count of popular books for kids. The average word count per chapter for novels is between 3,000 and 5,000 words. In the table below, the number of pages is as shown by amazon. 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. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. I am writing the last chapter of my childrens chapter book manuscript and am currently just shy of 23k. For most publishers, a book is novellength when it s between 50,000 and 110,000 words. If you write a novel that averages 3,000 words per chapter but. Some chapter books clock in closer to 4,000 words, which is on the low end. Childrens chapter books word count age 69 word count.

I thought chapter books could have a lower word count as paula sadler had said. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. My current wip is young adult, so i compiled a somewhat random list of ya novels by debut authors and looked up the book s word count. It is feasible to count the number of words in a published chapter. Jan 08, 2015 still, theres no question that picture books are skewing younger with shorter word counts. These sometimes get lumped into young middle grade territory as well. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Upper middle grade word count can be a little longer, as can middle grade fantasy word count, since those novels require more worldbuilding and tend to have more plot. There are good word count guidelines online and usually id recommend 6 10,000 words for a chapter book, 4060,000 words for middle grade and 50 70,000. Search for word count totals in books word counters. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to word counts, and different sources are going to tell you different things. How to write early readers, easy chapter books, and. Each book in this series by suzanne collins has an average chapter word count of 3694 words. Thats 49,000 words or more too much for a first novel according to nearly everything i read on here.

The hobbit has more unique words and a higher unique word density than both the silmarillion and each volume in the lord of the rings. Longer chapters with a higher word count can be found in literary fiction. Word count for picture books the standard is text for 32 pages. 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. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. Im a little confused about the word count for chapter books. Mind you, there are 66 books in the bible, so each book is only like 10,000 words.

For them, chapter books aimed at 710 year olds come in at between 6,0008,000 words. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. Why word count matters when you submit your book the artful. Less than 70,000 unless fantasy scifi supernatural, which can be longer, max 90,000. Most of them say that trying to keep the chapters within a certain length range is helpful to the reader. Childrens book writers must adhere to strict industry standards for. I use the target average of 1,500 words per chapter. I calculated the word count words per line for 10 lines divided by 10 times the number of lines per page times the number of pages, rounding the product for dan browns origin 231,000 words, robert ludlums the prometheus deception 210,000, daniel silvas the black widow 180,000, brad thors code of conduct 166,000, michael connellys the crossing 129,000, and vince flynns enemy. Sometimes theyre shorter the lion, the witch and the wardrobe by c. If you feel your story is best served with a higher word count than the norm and its engaging, it just might work. Like those canonical classics, chapters in more literary modern novels often exceed the sweet 4,000 word count. If im writing a novel, this gives me 40 chapters and 70,000 words when im done. Here is what i found in order from least words to most words.

Fleshing out an imagined historical world lends itself to a higher word count, so historical fiction tends to be closer to 100,000 words. Feb 20, 2019 the answers is as long as a piece of string twice the length from the middle to the end. Chapters in books for younger readers often err on the shorter side, while fantasy. It all depends on how much you dive into an idea and how far you go with that idea. Scott fitzgerald, and old yeller by fred gipson all range between 35,000 and 50,000. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me.

When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. They can be as short as one sentence, especially when using dialogue. You can use this handy calculation to visualize the size of standard books in particular genres based on the word count ranges. Word count varies widely, depending on grade and reader level. Begin each chapter with an abstract that summarizes the content of the chapter in no more than 200 words. And if your character is a fourth or fifth grader, chances are you have a younger middle grade novel for ages 9. Feb 10, 2020 7,00010,000 words case book chapter 5,0007,500 words encyclopedia article word count ranges may vary from projecttoproject 5,0007,000 words journal article. If you would like to calculate the word count for a particular section of your document, you would highlight that section before selecting word count. I was a middle school english teacher, so know i know mg pretty well, and i.

For more information on word counts for childrens book, check out this post. Chapter books allow you to discuss some adult concepts, but from the point of view of the child. May 07, 2018 why do you think publishers care about word count. Aug 23, 20 until i discovered ar book finder, a site that will give you the word count for almost all novels. To find out how long should a chapter be, we examined books from a wide variety of genres and eras. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time. The first book in each series below was the authors first. Books in literary fiction tend to have more word count, especially novels written before the 20th century, romance, and scifi. 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. I was quickly flooded with emails from many an angry author for daring to put a word count on a level of book. Average novel word counts are generally around 85,000 but they can range from 50,000 to 120,000.

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. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. And, in case youre wondering, here are the average word counts for other popular genres. 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 actual word count for the hunger games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 94,743 words. Feb 09, 2015 this post unlocks the word counts of some popular ya series. Even dan browns first novel digital fortress is 159,000 words and 186,000 respectively using each method. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. With all that in mind, we can start to figure out how long our chapters ought to be. Its also worth noting that the average word count figure can vary by genre. Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Jun 27, 2019 chapter books will come in at the lower end of the spectrum, while middlegrade books meant for older readers may even slightly exceed 55,000 words. Apr 09, 2014 chapter books these books are targeted at readers in grades 27. But overall, heres my own rough stab at word counts by genre.

For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. A suitable boy, by vikram seth, 592,000 words, 19 chapter, average chapter length a totally insane 31,000 words. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. From these numbers, we can establish some guidelines. Books in the romance and scifi category usually have 3000 words, while thrillers typically contain 600800 words in each chapter. To give you a general idea of the average chapter length, the range is usually between 3,000 to 5,000 words. On the lower end of things, margaret atwoods dystopian 1985 novel averages only 2096 words per chapter less than half of the average length of middlesex chapters. How many words does it take to write a young adult book. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and novels and memoirs and childrens novels and picture books. Oct 16, 2018 for example, a 75,000 word book is about 300 pages long. By the way, if you want to know what i think of logos. Obviously, the examples under each category are above and below what is generally accepted.

Publishers can control the length of a book based on several factors. You wont get exact, but youre wondering whether 35k is reasonable, so you dont need exact. Paragraphs have no specific sentence or word count. May 29, 2014 ive put together word counts for every book of the bible. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. Oct 18, 2017 to find out how long should a chapter be, we examined books from a wide variety of genres and eras. These numbers are pulled from the original languages using logos bible softwareyou can see how i did it below. Everything you need to know about novel word counts. How to write a childrens chapter book mary kole editorial. The word count 788,280 is based on the kjv and seems to be almost exactly as wed expect see our page on how many words in the bible for more information on this. All of them agree that the chapter length should be defined by the story and that any chapter length targets you decide on are merely guidelines. But here, for example, are some famous novels, along with word counts and chapter lengths. Never write a chapter longer than 4,000 words bookfox.

The word count range for each age level is only a guideline. Apr 01, 2012 a took a random selection of kindle books the ones that just happened to be on my hard drive at the time and figured out the approximate word count for each book when converted to plain text. I use amazons data feeds to come up with the calculation. Writing chapter books a look at the numbers hannah holt.

They are designed to look like grownup books, though there is usually a picture here and there. Then there is the actual word count by ms word which im advised it not used by agents and editors. In the quest for word counts, i stumbled onto this post by andrew winkel, first published in 20. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. Oct 27, 2018 james patterson the mostselling author in the world is famous for his tiny chapter of a page and a half around 250500 words. Word count for book series the first book in each series below was the authors first. I used the lexham hebrew bible and the nestlealand novum testamentum graece for these word counts. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Nov 22, 2011 word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing.

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. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. Is your idea a picture book, chapter book or middle grade. There are some variations between versions with includedexcluded text and verses, however, for the purpose of establishing the relative lengths of each book, these counts are. Google and allow unregistered users to read the abstract as a teaser for the complete chapter. How many words in a novel and word counts for other types of. A game of thrones, by george rr martin, 298,000 words, 60 chapters, average chapter length 4,970 words. The authors had sold between 10 copies and 2 million copies of their chapter books. Oct 31, 2020 before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. There are also some subgenres that have slightly different conventions. Childrens book types and suggested word counts go teen writers. Sep 17, 2020 while theres plenty of room for variety, the average chapter length for a book is between 2,000 and 5,000 words, with the sweet spot lying between 3,000 and 4,000 words.

Although 110,000 word young adult novels exist theyre the minority, as are 50,000 words or below books. Oct 22, 2010 i love the whole childrens fiction genre, but i must say that chapter books and early readers are my two favorite areas. There are many different versions of the bible with different word counts, and some books are very short, while some are very long. Some are as short as 50,000 words the perfect book for a beach vacation. To calculate a specific section of your document, just highlight the words you want to count first.

The dragon reborn was rightskewed, which means there was a heavy distribution of exceedingly long chapters. He had helpful directions to the ar bookfinder website, which among other things, such as quizzes and ratings helpfully has the word counts of hundreds of books. Since just comparing the number of unique words in a book does not take its length into account i decided to calculate the percentage of unique words of the whole text. How many words in a novel and word counts for other types. Try to include lots of dialogue and humor in these books to keep the childs interest. May 14, 2018 what follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres.