As persuasion progresses, jane austen seems to elongate hers, building them up on a crescendo. Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. Word count of popular fantasy and science fiction series. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says. The following are average wordcount ranges by genre. You wont get exact, but youre wondering whether 35k is reasonable, so you dont need exact. The second or third in a particularly bestselling series can go even higher. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the book, and for ya novels the average is 50,00070,000 words. And man, people love to point out exceptionsand they always will.
There are a lot of books that fit nicely into this range, such as enders game with 100,609 words and the martian with 104,588 words. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Novel 50,000 110,000 most print publishers prefer a minimum word count of around 70,000 words for a first novel, and some even hesitate for any work shorter than 80,000. 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. A word count guide for 18 book genres, including fiction and nonfiction. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words. As a reader i love the huge word count novels steven king has written and the very short gems tom robbins has penned. Traditionally published mysteries, like the books of sara paretsky, louise penny, laurie r. The ideal count for a mystery is a 70,000 and 90,000 word novel. Is black company being separated into five blocks a matter of omnibus publications, or does this graph really only account for 5 out of 10 books otherwise, this is a good illustration of the effort needed to overtake a specific series. Literary agent danielle zigner takes a look at typical novel lengths and what appeals.
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 for a book in the respective. According to chuck sambuchino see below for word count. Within short stories, there is a further breakdown to define supershort stories as flash and microflash. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Traditionally, mystery novels have tended to be on the. Each genre and subgenre has its own word count range. It is feasible to count the number of words in a published chapter. Martin and harper lee keep things more evenly paced in a game of thrones and to kill a mockingbird, respectively. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. Larson writes science fiction with a word count around 100k. Many publishers prefer a modest below 100, 000 words word count since books. Books in this genre are also often gag gifts or are meant to be.
After that, your agent will be able to help you more. What occurred to me while reading was how the predetermined word counts make it more difficult to query a novel that crosses categories. As a general rule of thumb, a novel falls somewhere between word count ranges of 50,000 words and 100,000 words. With fun, lighthearted, simple middle grade youll want to stay around the 20k30k word count range. This specific genre has a lot of flexibility with word and page count due to the variety of plot types and story arcs.
We gave each other knowing glances, and because i didnt want to break this poor memoirists literary heart. But it shouldnt be word count for the sake of word count. So should i stay with this word count, or try to bring the word count down. Alternatively, this is an acceptable length for a short work of nonfiction. 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. The sweet spot, according to donald maas, is 100,000 to 115,000 words. This 90,000word guideline for how many words in a novel is just that, a guideline. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you. A fantasy novel will usually have 90,000 to 120,000 words. Also, edgedancer should, for all purposes, be considered stormlight 2. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. The highest word count was 115,000, the lowest was 47,000, and the average was 75,000.
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. The most important thing here is to realize that there are always exceptions to these rules. Word count guidelines do, however, differ between genres and age groups. Do check your comparable titlesrecent debuts onlyto make sure your story falls in that range. The acceptance of a more ambitious word count in these two genres is the need to describe whole new worlds and presumably original. If youre working on a novellength book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least but its better to aim for 90,000. 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.
But genre books fantasy, scifi, or historical fiction are often longer. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. Now, the page count was dramatically higher using the courier font, but word count didnt change. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. Some genres like science fiction can be much longer and spend 1,000s of words on worldbuilding. That gives us a rough range of 61,00089,000 words, with about 3. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Anything above 70k but less than 115k science fiction and fantasy tend to run up around 100k115k words. I just did a word count of my ya novel in courier new 60,705. Most print publishers prefer a minimum word count of around 70,000 words for a first novel, and some even hesitate for any work shorter than 80,000.
A good, short literary novel might be 60,000 words. What is the ideal word count for a nonfiction book in the. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Generally a 50,000word novel would be the minimum word count. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference.
Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. My upperlevel ya novel is 211 pages, 61,078 words, tnr 12 pt. Science fiction and fantasy novels break the above word count rules and can be longer how many words are there in a scifi or fantasy novel. Some books, however, go up to 150,000 to 180,000 words. Instead, i looked at various scenes at the beginning, middle and end of each book, and multiplied the page numbers by the number of words on an average page an average manuscript page is about 250 words, but paper and font sizes vary with published books, so i had to do sample page counts for each bookfor instance, my copy of old man and. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876. Here are some popular scifi novels and their word counts. My own past research on ya word count turned up 5080,000 as an average guideline. Precise word count definitions will vary, but as a general rule of thumb, a short story is anything up to about 7500 words sometimes 10,000, with higher word counts typically called novelettes, and short novels called novellas. As mentioned, general fiction for adults should come in at 100,000 words.
If there is an average, 60,000 words to 80,000 words are probably the sweet spot. The science fiction and fantasy writers of america specifies word. Coyne uses the nanowrimo wordcount length of 50,000 words for his examples, calling 50,000 words a good foundation to build upon. Heres an article which breaks down by genre the typical length. Here are some word count guidelines major fantasy and science fiction publishers have given during open submission rounds. The need to invent a completely new environment makes this genre longer than others. These word counts assume that a novel is more for commercial consumption, and for adults. Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature. For direct submissions we only consider complete and unpublished science fiction, fantasy and horror novels, written in english of between 95,000 150,000 words. Science fiction and fantasy are the big exceptions because these categories tend to run. That said, the average word count for science fiction and fantasy novels generally lies between 100,000 and 115,000. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Mostly, it will depend on the story you want to tell.
As a nonfiction writer myself, i know this is tough. The average chapter word count of these novels falls within the 2,0005,000 range. Realize it over the maximum word count for erotic, science fictionfantasy genre. When setting your word count target for a fantasy or science fiction novel, consider whether you want to go the traditional publishing route or selfpublish. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. Science fiction and fantasy novels typically have a word count between 90,000 to 125,000 words. Fantasy and science fiction novels are known to be lengthier than other books. None of them fit the industry standard in word count. Word count matters more than it should in my opinion. Yet any piece of fiction climbing over the 110,000 word mark also tends to give editors some pause. It makes quite a difference whether you want to publish a childrens picture book, a 50recipe smoothie book, a science fiction novel or a technical encyclopedia. Science fiction and fantasy books should be 90,000 to 125,000 words. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words.
On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. The relationships genre is not to be confused with the fiction romance genre. Ya fiction for mainstream ya, anywhere from about 45k to 80k. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. Im not sure if im pushing the word count over, been trying cut back the word count.
For young adult fiction, the word count is once again lower, with the ideal. I then did a word count after switching to times new roman 60,705. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book category. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. King, and lee child run well over 90k, sometimes going as high as 120k. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. The average word count could be anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words. Science fiction books typically have between 50,000 and 150,000 words, like fantasy novels.
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