Heard length of 1st novel should be 60-90K words.Does that mean 120-180pages(seems 500 words/page most novels)

Question

That doesn't seem quite right.

Answer 1

Properly formatted with 60 monospaced (Courier 12) characters per line and 25 lines per page, a page of manuscript is 250 "words" long, a word being 6 characters, including blanks (not 5).

The number of words on the page of the finished, printed novel can vary wildly depending on various printing factors from gutter to page size to font. Ignore that and rely on 250 words per complete page.

Your info on word count for novels by unknowns is pretty solid. It varies by genre and shorter tends to be better for first-time novelists.

Answer 2

I work at a book publisher in Austin, Texas (BookPros.com) and we use the estimate of 298 words per page when the book is put into its final form of 5.5" X 8.5", which is the standard size for trade paperbacks. This means that a 60-90K book would be around 200 to 300 pages long, which is a healthy size. I don't know why someone would say that is the length that first-time authors should stick to, but my guess is that it's best for newer authors to start off basic and not get to crazy or unconventional right out of the gate. It's not an absolute rule, however.

Answer 3

it's not literally counting the words, just character space per page, as explained above.

60-90K is a good-sized book, and a publisher probably wouldn't skip you if your book was much bigger, but consumers are fickle. If they see a 500 page book by an author nobody has ever heard of they may not be willing to read it, but 250-350 pages is something people would be more willing to read, which in the publisher's eyes=more money.

It also depends on your genre, fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy will be more willing to read 500 pages than a housewife who gets into thrillers or a Mystery fan.

Answer 4

Your typical manuscript requirements are COURIER NEW, size 12 font, double spaced. This sort of font is easy to read and doesn't strain the eyes. Word count for a novel is 50,000 to 100,000 words as was stated above so it's definitely going to be more than 200 pages. I have one manuscript I'm working on now which is at page 81, but it's only 16,810 words. I have another manuscript which is 271 pages, with more to go but 63,980 words. Page number is irrelevant, like others have told you, but only because the word count is what they look at. Your future book will be published in many different shapes and sizes throughout the years.

Answer 5

I think the length of any novel should be what the author wants it to be. If the author makes it quite short (100 pages or less) it'll be called a novella perhaps, but it's that author's piece all the same.

Longer novels should take as many pages as the author sees fit to print... or in other words, as many pages as the best storytelling possible takes.

I'm not sure what doesn't seem quite right about a 120-180 page work, a fine enough length for a good one-sitting read. As long as the author, editor and publisher are happy with it, and the blurb or author's name gets me happy to read it, it's all quite alright!

Longer books seem now to be the rage in fantasy esp., but it wasn't always so; there are lots of classics only a few hundred pages long. In fact many of my favorite works in any genre are only a couple of hundred pages long, thereabouts.

My advice is to quit counting pages before they hatch ( if indeed that is the case) and, if the author is finished with the piece, be glad to be finished and proud of the work!

Answer 6

A word in the publishing industry is five characters long. You can get the exact word count by taking your character count and dividing by five, however, an approximation is good enough.

Rule of thumb is every 50 pages equals 10,000 words. A double-space page with 1 inch margins has approximately 350 words and not 500.

I could be off on words per page since I only do novels and the other formula is the way I go.

Answer 7

My first novel was 60,000 words and exactly 174 pages long using 12pt text with 16pt line spacing, and starting chapters on the 9th line of a new page. I know others whose first novels are also similar in size.