The novel: I’m aiming for a draft of 100,000 words. I realize: (1) the story might require a little less or a little more, but I won’t know until I get to the end; (2) the final, revised novel may have more words than the draft.
All that aside, I’m wondering about the number of pages this amounts to. Not how many pages of double-spaced 12-pt. Courier or whatever, but how many pages in an actual printed book.
Looking at some of the paperbacks I have around my house, I’m guessing there’s an average of 400 words per page, which means a 100,000 novel = minimum 250 pages.
Is anybody aware of a formula for this? Is there an industry standard?
Every print format is slightly different. Every publisher won’t be the same. A while back, I took an sample of about fifty different paperbacks and arrived at a rough average of 325 words per page.
That would put your 100k novel at about 310 pages in the average paperback format.
I think the short answer is “lots”. Most modern fantasy novels are 100k+ and they are hefty tomes, even in paperback
Why do you want to know?
Ken: I see you’ve done some of the research on this. Thanks for sharing.
Merrilee: Just trying to get an idea of what this mess of a draft I’m working on would look like if translated into book form.
My completed MS “FIFTHWIND” IS 145,500 words. It is 669 double-spaced pages. It would print as a paper-back at about 480-510 pages.
As I was doing a lot of research on how to put word count into a query letter, I found two or three sites that said when estimating for only the letter purposes, to take the page count you have and then multiply by 250. My actual word count in Word was like 103,000, but when I took the pages (370 or so) and multiplied by 250 it was like 93,000 words.
Another place I found someone was asking an agent (I think it was nathan bransford) about how Word document pages transcribe into print. He said it’s really about page for page. So my 370 page manuscript would be around the same number of pages in hardcover.
So, my 103,000 word manuscript was about 370 typed doubled spaced pages.
Thanks. That gives me an idea.
Depends on the font your publisher uses. I have always heard that if you use 12 pt font, have one-inch margins on all pages, and double-space, the standard calculation is 300 words x # of pages. If you use a Courier font with one-inch margins all around, you should use the 250 words x # of pages.
At least you have a ballpark number.
KJ
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