Perkins agency in new york says its much easier to market a firsttime novelists book if the word count falls between 80,000 and 100,000 words, or roughly 300 doublespaced, typed pages the average novel length. Maybe 6 books a year at this publishing house, and that based on. But savoring a book of, say, 800 pages or longer is a project. Rated the longest novel ever by the guinness book of world records, theres no doubt that prousts masterpiece could quite easily double up as a mightily effective doorstop, with volumes clocking up nearly 1. With this in mind, i did some research and came up with thirty of the longest fantasy series ever published. That left me with 66 logos word lists, each giving me every originallanguage word in a given book of the bible. I once entered a competition that set a maximum word limit of 80,000 for young adult novels and 100,000 for adult novels.
The longest day from cornelius ryan is a masterpiece of military history and a true classic, which gives the it was a day when the allied forces successfully opened the final european phase of the world war ii by invading and gaining footholds on the shores of france, which was the first step, aimed at freeing the continent from nazi occupation. Other times, the suggested word count seems to be based only on common wisdom with no reference to real books at all. Stephen king word count 112263 274,672 bag of bones 203,3 black house 252,270 blockade billy 15,917 carrie 60,718 cell 121,931 christine 193,602 cujo 121,150 cycle of the werewolf 15,955 desperation 195,011 doctor sleep. Books 4 through 6 easily represent the heftiest segment of the series, and then theres a very clear pattern of gradual increase from path of daggers all the way through a memory of light. All book publishers and book designers have a standard they go by to estimate page length. The fifth longest book of the bible is exodus with 25,957 hebrew words. Traditionally, artamene ou le grand cyrus, has been considered the longest novel, but has. If you like what you see, subscribe to our rss feed.
Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. Well explain two easy methods to calculate book page count. My french edition of harry potter and the order of the phoenix is the longest book i. With over 100 million copies of his books sold, nicholas sparks is one of the worlds most beloved storytellers. Unfortunately, they dont offer word count so ive created an algorithm based on the number of pages, genre, and the dimensions of the book. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says. The premise of our discussion is, as lovecrafts experience and confidence grew in his writing, the length of his stories also grew cite. While i realize word count would be a more reliable measure of true length, i found it difficult to get what i considered reliable data regarding word count of all fantasy series, so i settled for number of pages in series, which. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. What is the longest word which can be written using the musical notes ag.
For example when it comes to verses i have read and heard preachers and teachers say there are 31,000 verses, 31,101 verses, 31,102 verses, 31,170 verses and. The 57 year old reading range straddles a few different categories of books. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isnt novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much. In 2017, the downward trend has continued, with an average book length of 273 pages. The last book in the series, harry potter and the deathly hallows, is 157. How many pages are there in all the harry potter books. I used word count, not number of pages, as the measure of length, and 3. Also, the wikipedia article does count novels with multiple volumes as one novel for the purose of length. Sep 06, 2016 most resources claim that the book of psalms is the longest book in the old testament, and therefore the bible. Also, heres another list i may swipe and add in here. Dont have my kindle here so cant exactly tell you the pages, but the only one that got waaaay long is the seventh or seventh and eighth, if you read the part1 and part2 editions wich is the last book. The full edition is the longest book by stephen king, both in page and word count as it nears 500,000 words.
Top 10 longest novels in the english language listverse. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. On average, how long is a childrens book for children. The only one on there ive personally read is infinite jest. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page count leading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. Before our book page count calculator, you had to dig around through multiple sources to figure out how many words per page for your exact font size and then do the math. And i thought the stand was long its only 1168 pages.
But the word count of a chapter matters if you want your story to flow right. So a 270,000 word count makes that novel somewhere around 1,300 pages. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. Not included on either of the lists are series like harry potter, which span middle grade and ya literature. The actual word count for the hunger games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 94,743 words. Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words or characters are counted. Wikipedia suggests it is some 1 million words longer than the malazan book of the fallen, its chief competition for the honor omitting shared universe tales like those of mercedes. King talked to time about his top 10 biggest books, reflecting on the circumstances under which they were written and the critical reception that they received. In 1990, king revealed that he had kept the material, and was allowed to turn the stand into an uncut version, as well as correcting time mistakes and adding popular culture references from the 80s and 90s, as the book took place in the. Calculate the number of pages using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. List of longest novels wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. If you write a book according to the usual criteria, one person may like it, the other may dislike it, but when you write ten volumes, no one will say that the book is in eight. Calculate book page count using word count for book design.
Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. Ten of the worlds longest books for reading addicts. Aug 14, 2017 and the stories were split up at the following page counts. In the opposite direction, it can give a more accurate estimate of how many pages you have created if you only know the word count. Jan 02, 2020 the fifth longest book of the bible is exodus with 25,957 hebrew words. Polgara the sorceress is the longest book i have read in english at 754 pages.
The average page count is 929, which makes outlander and alexander hamilton look downright short by comparison. Of course the number of books 66 and chapters 1,189 are fairly easy to count. In terms of pure word count, this 17th century novel obliterates the opposition, with a. Redwall is a series of childrens fantasy novels by british writer brian jacques from 1986 to 2011. If they want a 6 x 9 book, this is only about 66 pages almost not a book. Aug 05, 2019 for most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. A glorious mess in a career of glorious messes, pynchons longest and loosest. I built one logos word list like this for every single book of the bible. And since word count information isnt easily available, some of these numbers may have been estimated based on page counts and may not be all that accurate. In the early days, it was important, though, as it factors into the page count of the comics. But since those arent part of the original, and because some books may have.
The longest book of the new testament, and the twelfth longest book of the entire bible, is the gospel of luke with 19,482 greek words. Word count is a more important criteria for longest than page count, as the size of the page and font will contribute to the overall number of pages, but the. Kings latest, under the dome, is his third longest novel ever. Once youre done reading about the worlds longest novel, check out. Rated the longest novel ever by the guinness book of world records, theres no. From these numbers, we can establish some guidelines. So anyhow, as noted, in the earliest days of marvel, comic books were 68 pages long. The length of the book increases with the number of book in the series.
It is supposedly the worlds longest published novel in english at 2. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. Aug 01, 2014 length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. This article on writers digest also suggests a length of around 100115,000, and takes a good look at desirable word count ranges for different genres. Jan 08, 2018 this article on writers digest also suggests a length of around 100115,000, and takes a good look at desirable word count ranges for different genres. Weighing in at over 4 million words, the wheel of time is assuredly among the longest fantasy series out there, although reliable data on the matter is elusive. No word count, but based on its 5200 page count, gordana makes the list at number. Psalms is the longest book of the bible see what the longest book actually is. In 2016s list, ron chernows 816 page alexander hamilton managed to crack the top spot. Once youre done reading about the worlds longest novel, check out some of our more recent articles or have a look at our notable posts, listed in the right sidebar. My next traditionally published book, the author training manual writers digest books, february 2014, was supposed to be around 50,000 wordsthats what i agreed to in my contract and what my publisher planned on when determining page count, design, expenses, profitandloss statement, etc. To determine the longest series based on page numbers, the page count shown on the first amazon english language edition of the book was used for each title in the series. One rule of thumb is you can get 60 percent of a manuscript page into one typeset page said manuscript being in 12point type, doublespaced, preferably times new roman, with oneinch margins on an 8. What is the longest literary work ever written in terms of.
The list of books and their page counts was supplied by kings office and refers to the american hardcover editions. However, the drop in the overall average length of bestsellers over the last 7 years points to a marked. You can easily calculate book page count using the word count from your word document. I figured this because the book has 150 psalms, and the runnerup in chapter count would have been isaiah, with a meager 66 chaptersthats less than half of what psalms has. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Gillian has finished the book and still doesnt hate it. By using these three options to more accurately define your writing, the words per page calculator should provide a better estimate on how many words you need to write to fill a page.
This task ended up being much more complex than one would think a list of longest books ever should be. Top 10 longest books in the world 2018 update articles. Viceversa, if your book is short, a smaller trim size can make it physically seem more substantial. This book s genre credentials have been disputed with the suggestion that varney is actually a madman rather than a real vampire, but there seems to be a general acceptance that the book is a genuine work of the fantastic, and the longest sff work ever published in one volume which it was in 1847. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me. Harry potter and the deathly hallows, the only book with officially 2 parts. I will provide a chronological list, including publication dates or written if unpublished in his lifetime and words counts, of lovecrafts solo fiction. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. The wheel of time is a series of high fantasy novels written by american author james oliver rigney jr.
I see a lot of people talking about longest fantasy series and using page count as a indicator, which can vary a lot and so isnt a good indication of actual length. The profoundly influential volume work contains 9,609,000 characters, with each letter and space counting as one character. Its too much hassle and timeconsuming time you couldve spent refining and perfecting your book content. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper. To find out how long should a chapter be, we examined books from a wide variety of genres and eras. The overview below provides an indication of the number of pages required based on font.
May 02, 2019 different editions of a book series can also change in page number based on whether its a special edition or had edits between printings rare, but it can happen. No book that size is perfect, because excess is kind of the point. The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of pages. This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. Firstly, it is easy to count the number of pages or words in a digital manuscript today, but for older books, this number can only be estimated. Special thanks go to logos bible software for making determining the longest book of the bible by hebrew or greek word count much easier. Erickson and esslemonts series is now so long ive lost count of how many books there are in all the different series, but i believe we are up to 19 by the end of july 2017 with around 14,500 pages. It ranks them on word count, rather than page count which seems like a more accurate way to get an idea of length. If you add in the six novellas, the series is now above 15,500 pages long with 25 published. In total, all seven harry potter books contain 1,084,170 words. However when it comes to verses, words and letters, there are a wide variety of numbers floating around. Nov 09, 2009 kings latest, under the dome, is his third longest novel ever. The last two books are slightly shorter but still longer than the first books in the series.
Of those pages, 2 of them were devoted to text pieces and then roughly 60 pages were devoted to comic book stories. This isnt to say that long books are no longer succeeding. The title translates to remembrance of things past. Hi ann, can you give me an example of a published 270,000 word novel. What is the longest book in the world in terms of page count. Its theme of involuntary memory is repeated through the course. The next big change wasnt until early 1948, when the biggest drop yet took place, going from 52 pages to 36 pages long. Depending on the variant that youre reading i believe that the page numbers differ between countries so im using the copies that i have to hand. Proust produced the first volume of his volume masterpiece in 1912 it was first published in 19. It is also the title of the first book of the series, published in 1986, as well as the name of the abbey featured in the book, and is the name of an animated tv series based on three of the novels redwall, mattimeo, and martin the warrior, which first aired in 1999. Search for word count totals in books word counters. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length.
One of the more interesting datapoints i found while analyzing this information was. I hope this information has helped you gain clarity about your book. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size. Weve taken a look at the shortest books in the bible, but what about the longest book in the bible if youd asked me about it in sunday school, my answer would have been a quick, confident psalms. If the calculation is based on the number of verses or the number of chapters or the number of pages, it is correct. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time. Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. I included only books originally written in english, since it is easier to achieve a high word count in some languages than others, and english is the language i am most familiar with. In word count, not just pages, what is the longest known fictional book. If you are an author of a book or know of a books accurate wordcount, contact me.
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