Put a title the exact title in the search engine, then click on the title, or one of the titles if more than one comes up. And as youve probably guessed it is sitting pretty right in between middle grade and adult. Search, watch, and cook every single tasty recipe and video ever all in one place. Lester has twice taught courses on the nwordand found theres plenty to talk. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. Where can i find a database of all published books word. And women are either virgins or whores and a possible lesbian should be killed. My point is that your genre will likely dictate your word count. Writing for young adults a look at the numbers hannah holt. I clicked on the unabridged version, and it lists the word count as 97,364. Around 3500 to 4500 words, but it depends on the genre see more ideas about words, writing tips and cool words. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words.
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. Young adult fiction allows for a lot of flexibility in word count. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. The n word reveals how the term nigger has both reflected and spread the scourge of bigotry in america over the four hundred years since it was first spoken on our shores. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. You have just discovered the wonderful world of bibliographic metadata. Jan 18, 2010 because it allows me to check out length for published books in my genre. A renowned cultural critic untangles the twisted history and future of racism through its most volatile word. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. These are books for adults who enjoy reading adult books.
How to find out the number of words in a book pen and. Mutating the date and nword columns facilitates a better plot. How to find word count on your favorite novels nathan. Within the publishing industry we tend to talk about the length of a book in words. Dec 04, 2014 see how your word count stacks up against these popular best sellers. However, there is a wide range of acceptable word counts for nonfiction books. There are exceptions, like ya books that exceed 250,000 words, but those tend to be outliers, and firsttime authors rarely, if ever, get to be an outlier. With that in mind, ive tried to put together the definitive post on word count for fiction novels, young adult, middle grade, childrens books and. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price for the translation job. While page counts are a common but not universal feature of bibliographic metadata, word counts are much less frequently provided and are not at all mandatory. Retain outliers in general, but drop any titles containing the word omnibus because these are known to be larger books containing multiple individual novels. Word count picture book, middle grade, ya lisa lewis tyre. List of popular ya novels word counts if youre like me, you obsess over the word count of your novel.
Because it allows me to check out length for published books in my genre. Word count, with a little help from amazon alexis grant. How many words does it take to write a young adult book. With books like twilight at 118,975 words and divergent at 105,143 words, this genre has been. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. This is not a post for writers who say theyre going to write a short story and actually end up writing a short story. Im concerned because the word count is around 1,000 words. Ive been getting a lot of word count questions from pitch wars hopefuls, so i though id write everything out in a post for ease and convenience.
A way to check word count of published books anita nolan. Theres no point in obsessing about word choice if your story has whole scenes and whole subplots you can axe. The most important thing here is to realize that there are always exceptions to these rules. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising. You read enough ya to know the difference between tris and katniss, so go ahead and treat yo. In uk, this section includes books for readers aged 10 up. Jun 20, 2009 how can i find out the total word count of a book. The word count range for young adult is 55,000 to 90,000. In contrast, word count is finite and usually i can calculate book length with about 99% accuracy in part because also included in any calculation is a count of figures, tables, etc. Sep 28, 2010 guidelines for word count for childrens books from rebecca ryals russells website. Most ya agents will agree that the accepted range in todays market is around 65100k for a debut writer. Nope, this is a post for writers who set out to write a nice little 100,000word noveland find themselves at the finish line with a 200,000word behemoth on their hands. Nov, 2015 now these books are aimed at teenagers or the younger reader not ready to move into ya just yet.
Picture books 200500 words early readers 5002000 words chapter books 5,00010,000 words middle grade 25,00045,000 words, most averaging 35k. Which books count as young adult, and which as teen or new adult is ambiguous, and their readership is equally hard to define yas, nas or teens. Word count picture book, middle grade, ya when i finished my first middlegrade novel, last in a long line of rebels, it sat on my desk at 68,000 words. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Pencilthin books on narrow topics that are under 50,000 words are quite common. And man, people love to point out exceptionsand they always will.
Search for word count totals in books word counters. These include using published information about the book to determine an exact word count, estimating the number of words based on industry standards and. Ive been researching the word countspages of ya novels to make sure im not under or over. Alexie uses a racial slur the n word and stronger language the f. There are several methods for determining the word count of a given book.
Its also important to note that an age category is not a genre. Find the word count for published ya and childrens books. 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. I think it mostly only has kids ie ya and younger books. In the above url, replace the 0060530626 with the product id of the book your are looking for.
I also include word counts from some best sellers in. Use of the word nigger et al in literature before i started my tour of the best books i had no idea that the word nigger would pop up as often as it does. Should writers worry about word count the editors blog. Salman rushdies novel midnights children which won a booker prize and the prestigious booker of bookers is a much longer 208, 773 words.
Dont look at word count of published books thats an inaccurate metric because you dont know what word count those books found repsold at. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures. A way to check word count of published books anita nolans blog. On the macro level in any type of edit, but especially a wordtrimming one, you always want to start with the big picture. Itll give you the word count in the books summary when you click on its title. It seems that the text stats feature was removed at some time during 2012 curiously, amazons help page still mentions the text stats feature hovering over the cover of some books with the look inside feature enabled will bring up a popup that offers some links. A closer look at word counts for young adult novels. Aug 05, 2019 at the end of this article, youre going to find a guide to suggested word count length for most every popular genre. At times the readers of books may be interested in discovering how many words they read. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book.
Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. In itself, no measure is perfect but personally i find word count the most useful. Word count for book series the first book in each series below was the authors first. The actual word count for harry potter and the sorcerers stone is 78,792 and my utility calculates 77,876. Scott fitzgerald were alive today and wrote the great gatsby for nanowrimo, he would have fallen short of the minimum length it clocks in at 47, 094 words. At the end of this article, youre going to find a guide to suggested word count length for most every popular genre. Many new writers are unaware there are guidelines and rules for numbers of pages or words per type of literature as well as specific ages each category applies to. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsperline count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted then. What is the ideal word count for a nonfiction book in the. The thread you refer to is 76 months old as of today 3192014, dating that post to 2007. And it doesnt matter who you are talking about, there are only 2 kinds of people whites and the others niggers, eightballs, shines, hebes, kikes, mics, etc. As for nonfiction books, the standard bestsellers have word counts similar to adult novels. Jun 12, 2015 what is the best word count for your genre. Heres a quick word count guide for adult fiction, adult sff, young adult contemporary, young adult sff, and middle grade.
A nonfiction book attractive to publishers of bestsellers starts at around 75,000 words. Up to 6070k is probably safe though there are even longer exceptions. Word counts for children, mg, ya, and adult books, by genre. Oct 28, 2015 word count picture book, middle grade, ya when i finished my first middlegrade novel, last in a long line of rebels, it sat on my desk at 68,000 words. For the book hatchet, the actual word count is 41,672 and i give you. Now these books are aimed at teenagers or the younger reader not ready to move into ya just yet. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. Word counts for children, mg, ya, and adult books, by genre august 7, 2017 august 3, 2018 sarahnicolas ive been getting a lot of word count questions from pitch wars hopefuls, so i though id write everything out in a post for ease and convenience.
Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words. Aug 20, 2012 itll give you the word count in the books summary when you click on its title. Guidelines for word count for childrens books anita. Maybe youre just starting out in ya, or you prefer other types of books. Know your content, know your mainline pitch and some. Word counts for children, mg, ya, and adult books, by. I dont need one of those equations to help calculate word count based on the number of pages times whatever. I only tried it on two books but it worked on both so i thought id share.
The problem im having is that im thinking its to long. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. 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. Everything you need to know about word count and book length for books and novels and memoirs and childrens novels and picture books. Which is totally understandable, since length can be an important factor that agents and publishers look at when they receive your query letter. At the elementary level, i can imagine bringing in childrens picture books to. Line count varies depending on page size, font size, etc. This is due in large part to the variety of subgenres within it and the trend for a book series with an ever greater word count. A reader of the editors blog asked about word count for novels and although i answered the question on the blog article where it was posed, i thought other writers might have the same concern. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. This is not a post for the writers who have trouble writing books that arent long enough. Contemporary titles tend to skew towards the shorter end, with sff skewing longer. Listed below is a compilation of some of these guidelines.
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. Most of my life had been spent in scifi where race is simply not an issue, or in science books of various types where race is only discussed in relation to genetics. Therefore a perfect bridge between middle grade and ya. The word count in picture books is sliding like stocks in 2008. Young adult 55,00090,000 words ya contemporary tends to be on the shorter side, 6070k ya fantasy, scifi, and paranormal tends to fall on the longer side due to world building, 7090k.
Well, most young adult authors in the survey didnt sell a book last year, and. Basically, instead of applying a formula for word count, we apply the final format and see what results. But lets be real the only reason you havent read more ya is cause youre usually busy saving the world, nbd. Sep 12, 2012 put a title the exact title in the search engine, then click on the title, or one of the titles if more than one comes up. For young adult fiction, the word count is once again lower, with the ideal. I have tried searching the words word count plus the title of a novel, like the lovely bones, and all i get is the word count of essays and articles about the book in question, not for the book itself. Scififantasy is given a larger word count because the writer needs space to build the world. That gives us a rough range of 61,00089,000 words, with about 3 out of 4 queried ya books falling into that range. Look for trends in word count through time for select series. A ya word count young adult is usually around 90,000. 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. See how your word count stacks up against these popular best sellers.
If youre a lot outside these ranges, its going to be nearly impossible to get a publisher to commit to a book from a debut author. To be picked up by a traditional publisher, my manuscript needs to fall in a similar wordcount window. The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. I put in anne of green gables and clicked on the first entry, and it listed the word count as 17,129. Many of these books are written in rhyme or in a simple singsong meter that is catchy and fun. And since word count information isnt easily available, some of these numbers may have been estimated based on page counts and may not be. A 90,000 word count signals to professionals that you know what you are doing. But, most nonfiction publishers want to be sold the concept, and therefore be able to discuss the direction of the project, before you write the book. Some 6090k ya books get classified as hilo, but i dont think they were specifically written for the category. With books like twilight at 118,975 words and divergent at 105,143 words, this genre has been trending higher. So, with only a few edits, the question and answer about word counts question. There are some easy ways to find the word count for a published bookonline bookstores. Seven ya novels fiction that can provide students ages 1218 the.
Only you can know when to stop, and thats the best and worst part of all. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing. Ya manuscripts can have a word count anywhere from 55k to 90k. Wordchapter count for ya amateur question post by polymath. Guidelines for word count for childrens books anita nolan. The highest word count was 115,000, the lowest was 47,000, and the average was 75,000. Kelly, the scribe by elizabeth hunter, love is a stranger by. This list is classified as a best book list that does not include ya. The hunger games has a word count of 99,750 and my utility calculates it at 98,916. But for mainstream ya it is always best to stick to under 80k. The only way you can get away with exceptionally long word counts like j k rowlings later hp books or the george r r martin books is if youre an established author whos proven herself with lots of sales.
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