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