How to Calculate a Manuscript Word Count

You've successfully typed your story. Thinking it'll make it big, you start looking into agents and publishers and you hear about a specific format to be submitted, including an accurate word count. You probably think the word count in Word is what they are looking for, but it's actually a precise calculation used in the publishing word to determine the space your manuscript needs.

Instructions

1. Select your entire manuscript. The standard format is an average of 250 words to a page for most publishers.

2. Change the font to Courier, which is a monospaced font. This ensures each letter has the same width as the others.

3. Set the font size to 12. This is the standard type size for manuscripts as well as most reports.

4. Check each page for double spaced lines. All of your pages should be double spaced.

5. Make all your margins 1 inch around. This includes your top and bottom margins as well.

6. Pick out a page and average the word count. If you are close to 250, multiply the number of pages in your story by 250 to get your word count.

Tips & Warnings

• The number of words or formatted pages you need depends on the type of manuscript you're submitting. If you have a short story, it is roughly 2,000 to 7,000 words. For a novella, the word count is between 7,000 and 17,000 words. The novel requires at least 17,000 words and there's no determined limit.

• Include your formatted word count in your letter of query to agents and publishers.