Word count for popular books

Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Word count for novels and childrens books at the guide to literary agents blog. For novels specifically in the young adult genre, the typical range is between 55,000 79,999 words. Im curious about your advice compose the novel in the standard format from the start rather than changing it later why does this matter.

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. Aug 15, 2019 average word count for this book genre. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. Hearthkeeper by cordelia kingsbridge, love, sex, and understanding the universe by harrie farrow, rubble an. 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.

I know were in the twitter age of 140 characters, but limiting a great book to 80,000 words just rubs me the wrong way and always will. Aug 03, 2017 word counts of the most popular books in the world. In a typical contemporary book, you will have between 60,000 and 90,000 words. From this point, search for your book, click on the title within the list of results, and on the following page youll find the book s word count. Now, they dont offer word count or running time for books, but they do have a search api. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. However, he never seemed to be in a rush to finish his books. Aug 05, 2019 if youre not a thriller author, i wont keep you in suspense. I use the running time of the audiobook to come up with the word count total. My point is that your genre will likely dictate your word count. When writing a longer book that is aimed at 12yearolds and could maybe be considered tween, using the term upper middle grade is. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Apr 23, 2018 this post covers why word count matters for novels, the standard word count ranges for various genres, and the word counts of some famous novels. 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.

While you were at it, you should have used an appropriate type of chart. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and. Were not even close to hitting the wordcount ceiling. Readers of individual genres anticipate certain book lengths, and so do publishers. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. 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. Popular novel word count the worlds largest word count.

What follows is a rough guide to book length expectations in certain genres. Lets start with middle grade since thats what i write. Wordcounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit. 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.

Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. With books like twilight at 118,975 words and divergent at 105,143 words, this genre has been trending higher. There are no hardandfast rules when it comes to what word count a novel in a particular genre should be. If youve read our related article on how many words are in a novel youll recall that the typical word count for a novel according to is 80,000 to 109,000 words. This is a lot harder because its not a specific field im receiving back i have to scrape the results and do some crazy parsing of the data. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000word range. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. If youve ever read a joke book or a book revolving around a humorous endeavor of some sort, it falls under this book category. Famous book series and novel word counts number of words. This handy word counting tool runs in all popular web browsers such as firefox, chrome, opera, safari, internet explorer.

Word count of popular fantasy and science fiction series. And since word count information isnt easily available, some of these numbers may have been estimated based on page counts and may not be all that accurate. In light of this, several reedsy editors have been kind enough to offer tips for authors who are in the revision process and looking to cut down on word count. Counting chickens a few words about word counts at hope vestergaards site. Chapter books would be on the lower end, while upper middle grade would be fine in the upper range. If you count waggle then in some of steven eriksons books all uses of the word eyebrow are them being raised. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Feb 09, 2015 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. When writing for the younger ages especially, every word must count. Which is totally understandable, since length can be an important factor that agents and publishers look at when they receive your query letter. Famous novels have been extremely long, like 530,000 words for victor.

May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. List of standard books sizes to make the right size selection. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. The graphic looks at the length of some famous novels, poems, and plays from literary history. Books in this genre are also often gag gifts or are meant to be facetious. Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words or characters are counted. Surely when writing the important thing is to get words on the page even if theyre in pink comic sans. Tucker max tucker has sold over 5 million books as a 4x nyt bestselling author and is the cofounder of scribe. Several factors go into the price of an ebook, such as author popularity, series number, and demand for the information for nonfiction. Popular novels word count 95k 100k books goodreads.

Word count picture book, middle grade, ya lisa lewis tyre. I started this blog as a resource for myself, using wordpress so i could access my word count data from anywhere in the world, and easily share this data with friends. See which sizes feel the best in your hands and check each books page count to get an even better idea of how your book would feel if it had the same trim size and page. The average word count for a typical novel ranges anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words, with the average hanging around 90,000. This post covers why word count matters for novels, the standard word count ranges for various genres, and the word counts of some famous novels. Cs lewis the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe 38,421 prince caspian 46,290 the voyage of the dawn treader 53,960 chuck palaniuk choke 70,562 fight club 53,267 rant 75,223 invisible monsters 60,930 lullaby 64,737 philip k. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference.

Picture book writers are often tempted to add scenes and secondary characters that make the story unnecessarily complex. The word count range for young adult is 55,000 to 90,000. Search for word count totals in books word counters. However, book length varies widely between genres, among authors, and based on. On the high, high end weve got gone with the wind at 418,000 words, and more recently a suitable boy at almost 600,000 words. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. For debut books in this field the average word count tends to be 35k and it has therefore become the marker many industry professionals look for in queries from new writers. Safe in your fire by darien cox, asking for it by lilah pace, the cartel by e. Youll always find exceptions, but if youre a new author, dont stray too far from the norm. The line chart implies a gradual change occurs between the data points, and deemphasizes that there are individual books being added to the cumulative word count of a series. Middle grade word count is typically 20,000 to 55,000. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. At the end of this article, youre going to find a guide to suggested word count length for most every popular genre.

His book a man in full is 370,000 words and it took him eleven years to finish. The books are wellloved all over the world because of well, magic. This city of flowers by victory jones, rock by anyta sunday, from the ashes by marie brown, put out the light. The daily word counts of 19 famous writers word counter blog. Sep 18, 2017 older books might not reflect the current market. Everything you need to know about novel word counts. In this post were going to explain word count and how it affects your chance of.

I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by. May 15, 2011 well, while the accelerated reader program is lame in a lot of ways, this is a very handy tool. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book. I suspect youre a student of life too, so perhaps you should choose the same. Here is everything writers need to know about novel word counts. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. Jun 15, 2017 this is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. Jan 18, 2012 list of popular ya novels word counts if youre like me, you obsess over the word count of your novel. Ebook word count should also be accounted for when setting the price of an ebook. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books.

Click librarian or teacher and then search for books like yours click on the titles to get all kinds of info about them, including wordcount. Rowlings recordbreaking series began with two titles on the high end of that spectrum and finished with five that left the guidelines in the dust. 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. To find pretty much any kids ya word count, you can use the ar bookfinder. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. It was also rather repetitive overall, with the phrase raised an eyebrow accounting for 77% of all eyebrow raising. Other times, the suggested word count seems to be based only on common wisdom with no reference to real books at all. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. Unfortunately they dont have all books, but they do have the most popular ones. Dec 04, 2014 see how your word count stacks up against these popular best sellers.