Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Word length of novels

This is topic Word length of novels in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

I remember reading in a post that somewhere it is possible to find the word length of various novels. I tried googling and couldn't find anything. Can someone help me out with this? Anyone know where to find what length specific recent novels are?

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

Amazon lists word count, as well as a number of other things, in books with the "search inside" feature activated.

On the books main page, scroll down to the section titled "Inside this book". Then under the subheading "new" click on "text stats".

I tried Googling for some kind of table of word count for published books, but to no avail. But I searched only half heartedly (it's late!). I'll try again tomorrow if someone else doesn't come up with something first.

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

Thanks, Annepin. That will help if I can find it. I've scrolled up and down the page again and again. I don't see anything that says "search inside." I probably misunderstood or something. It's got to be there somewhere.

Is it on the page of the specific book? Can you give me a hint. Their "circus" advertising technique makes their pages such fun to find anything.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited March 31, 2008).]

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

Ah, okay. So if you look up a book there's the little picture of the cover on the left. If it's a "search inside book" it will have a little "search inside" halo, like Storm of Swords.

Stay on that page. Scroll down past the editorial reviews, past "product details" to "inside this book" (orange letters). Then under subheading "new" it will have the clickable link "text stats", and you'll see SoS has a whopping 425,511. Goodness!

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

Ah the novels I looked I probably just didn't have that feature. Thanks! I'll do some more looking.

Edit: LOL I thought Storm of Swords had even more words than that.

Edit: Aha. Found it. Thanks again, Annepin. I knew I'd read that you could find it somewhere and I'm pretty sure that was where they were talking about. It would take some work to get a real feel for novel lengths but in a genre such as YA where the length seems to be kind of changing, checking might not be a bad idea.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited March 31, 2008).]

Posted by urodela1 (Member # 7907) on :

Dear Jeanne T

I was curious about this recently and I'd be happy to share the results of my research. Apparently, when publishers talk about "word count," they mean 'how many words in pages formatted ~Courier (or other monospaced) 12 pt font, 1" margins, etc, at 250 words/page' Hitting the wordcount function in your wordprocessor will underestimate, because all those 1/2 pages at the ends of chapters, etc, still count as 250 words.

Ballpark figure, a "novel" is anything over 40,000 (160 pages). Most YA novels are around 70,000 (280 pages). Hitting 90,000 (360 pages) will put you in the range of most true-to-life, literary stuff, etc. SFF can run 100,000+ (thick tomes).

I remember when I thought a novel was anything over "100 pages." Guess not, huh? Hope this helps. I'm aiming for about 75-80K, with my book. Almost halfway there--so many hills to climb.

Sincerely,
Urodela1

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

No, that isn't what I was asking, but thanks.

And to clarify 100,000 isn't a think tome for fantasy. That is average length and it's hard to sell anything shorter.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited April 11, 2008).]