2007-11-20 08:36:33 · 5 answers · asked by star42430 5 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
It varies by genre. Romance ranges from 50,000 words (Harlequin main line) to 100,000 words.
Science fiction minimum is 80,000 words.
Mystery minimum is around 70,000 words.
Mainstream (someone's gonna cry) averages around 100,000 words.
2007-11-20 08:42:06 · answer #1 · answered by loryntoo 7 · 5⤊ 0⤋
grab a half dozen novels, any novels - maybe 2 fat ones, 2 skinny ones, 2 normal "pocket book" ones. Count the number of words that fit across a page on random pages, maybe 3 per book, multiply that by how many lines there are on a page. Take the average words-per-page times number of pages for each of your books. Add up the numbers, and divide by 6. That is, if you really want to know. Otherwise, like someone else says, guess between 80,000 to 120,000 - that sounds pretty reasonable.
2007-11-20 08:47:01 · answer #2 · answered by Megs 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I needed to know this. So, I took eight books in the same genre that I was working in, and averaged them.
They are all from the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.
The average is 194,279 words
The minimum is 117,228
The maximum is 328,157
This was done by downloading free copies from the publisher (completely legal) in the Word format, then using the 'properties' feature of Word to tell me the word count.
This is not necessarily the way a publisher will count words when you submit a manuscript, but it helped me compare my manuscript word count to others.
My book, by the way, is about 190,000 words.
James
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2007-11-20 11:03:33 · answer #3 · answered by james p 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Amount To Words
2016-12-15 10:04:06 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
"The Great Gatsby," one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century, has very few words, in comparison with others. It is amazing what kind of detail, plot, and sub-plots Fitzgerald fit into such a short book.
I searched very hard to find out exactly how many words the book contains, but in vain. I know that if a novel is great enough, the length won't matter.
2007-11-20 09:26:34 · answer #5 · answered by Holiday Magic 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
On average, there are 200 words per page. Take a look at some novels and see how many pages they have - they can vary, dramatically.
2007-11-20 08:42:31 · answer #6 · answered by concerned neighbor 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Have you seen the difference between a Nicolas Sparks novel and the Harry Potter books? It is really up to the author and their individual story... don't try to condense it, don't try to stretch it... let the story tell itself so to speak :)
2016-03-18 06:32:49 · answer #7 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
These guys are all right. 60,000 is what Harlequin wants. "War and Peace" is probably 300,000 or more.
2007-11-20 08:45:49 · answer #8 · answered by TD Euwaite? 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
80-120,000 is a good rule of thumb.
2007-11-20 08:38:50 · answer #9 · answered by remymort 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋