How to Find the Number of Words in a Novel
When you sit down to write a novel, one of the things you must decide, other than the plot, is how long the book should be. Every writing genre has different standards and reader expectations. Category romance novels tend to run 55,000 to 65,000 words. Cozy mysteries run about 55,000 words. Historical and science fiction epics may run upwards of 100,000 words. Knowing your book's genre and what your target word count is will help you write a book that meets publisher expectations and guidelines.
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Instructions
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1
Gather five novels in the genre or style of the novel you would like to write.
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2
Jot down on paper the number of pages in each novel. Do not count the title page, the forward or any appendices. Just note the number of pages that contain the story.
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3
Open each book to a page in the middle that has print from top to bottom with no extra lines of white space.
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4
Count the number of lines of text on the full page and write this on the piece of paper.
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5
Multiply the number of pages by the number of lines, then multiple the result by nine. This is the approximate number of words in that book. For example, a 325-page novel with 32 lines on a full page equals 93,600 words.
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6
Add up the word counts for the five novels and divide the total by five to get an average number of words for the five novels. That is your target word count for your novel.
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Tips & Warnings
To learn where you book fits in the literary world and to find books similar to yours to analyze for length, read extensively. Research what publishers are putting on the shelves before you write.
A double spaced manuscript page in Courier font gives you 250 words per page. Divide your target word count by 250 to calculate how many manuscript pages you need to reach your target word count. For the 93,600-word novel example mentioned in step 5, the manuscript would be approximately 375 pages long.
When researching other novels to determine which yours closely matches, choose novels that have come out in the past year. The publishing industry changes over time, and a book that sold 10 years ago may not be what publishers are buying today.
Writing a book that falls far short of publisher guidelines for length or greatly exceeds the publisher's requirements for word count is a rejection waiting to happen. Plan to succeed from the start. Research your genre and publisher guidelines carefully before you begin writing.
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