The word count of books

I use the value of the associated audiobook to come up with the calculation. Is it accurate? Let’s take a look at a few examples…

The actual word count for The Hunger Games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 99,216 words. The Girl on the Train has a word count of 101,704 and my calculation is 102,648. Pretty impressive! Are they all that accurate? Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the pace and style of the narrator.

And if you’re only looking for a few examples from a particular genre, the word counts for other books listed on this site have been verified. Word Count Ranges by Genre is a good place to start.

STT Book Word Count 1 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 568 751 2 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 567 246 3 The Lord of the Rings, the novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien 564 187 4 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 464 162 5 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 430 269 6 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 360 231 7 The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 354 098 8 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 353 250 9 The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio 311 155 10 Ulysses by James Joyce 268 170 11 The Republic by Plato 220 117 12 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes 216 349 13 Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville 215 839 14 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 208 016 15 The Iliad by Homer 193 536 16 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 190 339 17 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 189 290 18 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 187 596 19 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson 184 635 20 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 184 055 21 Dracula by Bram Stoker 165 453 22 Emma by Jane Austen 163 514 23 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 161 712 24 On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin 158 747 25 The Da Vinci Code, novel by Dan Brown 144 330 26 A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 139 605 27 The Odyssey by Homer 132 694 28 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 124 713 29 The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 123 936 30 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 122 646 31 The Twilight by Stephenie Meyer 120 238 32 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 119 572 33 Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau 118 922 34 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 118 804 35 Thus Spake Zarathustra – A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 115 632 36 The Confessions of St. Augustine by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine 114 915 37 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 107 605 38 Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift 107 293 39 Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery 106 294 40 Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm 104 228 41 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe 98 034 42 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 86 897 43 The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 83 705 44 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 82 222 45 Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 78 100 46 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 77 423 47 Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius 75 055 48 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain 74 772 49 The Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J. D. Salinger 74 144 50 Josefine Mutzenbacher by Felix Salten 73 567 51 Baron Trump’s Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood 72 424 52 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 72 036 53 The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois 71 747 54 Dubliners by James Joyce 70 693 55 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin 70 229 56 The Ontario Readers – Third Book by Ontario. Department of Education 67 967 57 The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin 67 286 58 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 66 835 59 The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce 63 397 60 The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells 63 194 61 The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle 62 297 62 The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana 62 155 63 Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson 60 893 64 The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie 59 608 65 And Then There Were None, a mystery novel by Agatha Christie 54 324 66 The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling 54 178 67 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli 52 677 68 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein 51 005 69 Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie 50 844 70 A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle 47 015 71 The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle 46 164 72 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Douglass 44 008 73 Beowulf – An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem by J. Lesslie Hall 43 092 74 Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry M. Robert 42 821 75 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum 42 636 76 Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse 42 216 77 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 41 597 78 The Alchemist, novel by Paulo Coelho 38 871 79 Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw 36 718 80 The Time Machine by H. G. Wells 35 530 81 The Call of the Wild by Jack London 34 964 82 A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens 31 650 83 A Doll’s House, a play by Henrik Ibsen 29 843 84 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 29 610 85 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 28 668 86 Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 25 189 87 Common Sense by Thomas Paine 25 033 88 The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde 23 760 89 Anthem by Ayn Rand 22 239 90 The Happy Prince, and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde 19 489 91 The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery 17 121 92 A Pickle for the Knowing Ones by Timothy Dexter 17 101 93 The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran 15 800 94 Southern Horrors – Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells-Barnett 12 709 95 As a Man Thinketh by James Allen 10 610 96 Ion by Plato 9 555 97 The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 9 105 98 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift 6 535 99 The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter 4 058 100 The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe 3 971

Depending on the genre, readers have different expectations about how long a book should be. Creating a book that deviates from genre criteria reduces your chances of reaching your target audience. Publishing house editors are aware of the book-length criteria and will reject your book outright if it does not meet them.

Knowing the average length for your genre might help you arrange your book’s sequence and plot arc. But how can you figure out about average book word count? And how do you figure out how much book word count should be? The length of genre books is regulated by the publishing business. We’ll go over each one in-depth.

Because books come in all sizes are they are printed with a variety of typefaces and leading, the average number of pages does not provide a clear sign of length. The number of words is the most accurate approach to determine the length.

The tool of word count is available in most writing software like MS Word, Google Docs, Grammarly, Scrivener, Ulysses, etc. You can choose a target word count, and the software will be tracking your progress and tell you when you’ve achieved it.

Since every book has a basic contract with the reader, word count is important. The genre dictates a word count for your book.

Being a writer, I realized the importance of the word count of a book. Each genre demands different word counts. Further, I am going to tell you about How many words per page in a book are suitable. Keep reading this blog to find out!

Another common question, and for most writers, the answer should be as simple as using the word count tool.

If you’re using Microsoft Word, you can use the “word count” option under “Tools.” Do you want to try something new? In Google Docs, here’s the way to discover the word count. In Scrivener, you can also keep track of how many words you’ve written.

The average single-spaced manuscript typed in the 12-point font has roughly 500 words per page, however, this varies a lot depending on how you arrange it.

Thus, in the event that you simply have an hour to compose and need to get 300 words down, you may be thinking about the number of pages 300 words rises to – the appropriate response is fewer than one! Isn’t it possible?

If you’re looking for an answer to a question like how many pages are in 50,000 words, simply divide your goal word count (50,000) by 500 (the average number of words per page). Your response is 100 pages long.

Don’t let the commas scare you. A year’s worth of fifty thousand words isn’t that much when divided into five days a week. That works out to only 193 words per day of writing!

With these word count calculators, you can easily track how much you’ve got covered.

I hope now you understand the importance of an average number of words per page and can write according to that so that your readers may want to stick to your book.

Top 3 Reasons Why Word Count Is Important In Writing a Book in 2023

While there are no hard and fast laws on how many words a book should have, there are some criteria that are highly recommended in the traditional publishing industry, particularly for first-time authors. Let’s be honest: we can’t be professional famous writers like Nicholas Sparks and J.K. Rowling and write a bestseller as our first book.

You’ll need to keep track of how many words you utilize in your first draught unless you’re self-publishing. There are three reasons why word count is important.

• Shorter Books are more marketable.

When it comes to large books/novels, a literary agency and a traditional publisher are less likely to take a chance on a new writer. The ideal word count for an adult fiction book is the most marketable.

• The cost of printing longer novels is higher.

Longer books necessitate a greater number of pages to be printed and the book size is increased too. Subsequently, they are costlier to print and address bigger speculation.

• Audiences anticipate a certain number of words.

Audiences have come to expect a specific story length and page count, so an unknown author can draw in more readers by sticking inside that range.

How Long Should a Book Be in 2023?

If you’re writing your first book, the conventional rule of thumb is to keep it between 80,000 and 100,000 words. While an average words limit of 40,000 can be deemed as a book, 50,000 words are considered the minimum length. For a fiction novel, anything over 110,000 words is considered excessively long.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien has a massive word count, with the longest clocking in at almost 175,000 words. Those epic sagas are the uncommon exception to typical word count constraints, notwithstanding their continued success. In most cases, you’ll want to keep your book as brief as possible.

Inside the universe of scholarly fiction, various kinds have diverse word counts:

Thriller Book

To keep the reader involved, a good suspense thriller must keep the storyline moving. A mystery novel book structure consists of 70,000 to 90,000 words long.

Science fiction and fantasy Book

World-building is an art form in science fiction and fantasy books. This genre takes longer than others due to the requirement to create a whole new environment. The average length of a fantasy book is 90,000 to 120,000 words.

Romance Book

Not every love tale is as epic as Wuthering Heights in romance novels. Romantic stories are now more often than not entertaining and quick reads. Some are as short as 50,000 words, making them ideal beach reads. The word count for a high-end romantic novel is 100,000.

Historical fiction Book

Because fleshing out an imagined historical environment necessitates a higher word count; historical fiction is usually around 100,000 words.

Non-fiction Book

Due to the numerous subgenres, there is no fixed word count guide for nonfiction books. If you’re producing a nonfiction book, search up that genre to see how long other books in that genre are. Memoirs, for example, are commonly between 80,000 and 90,00 words long.

All of these are typical book word count ranges and should not be used to determine the exact number of words you must include in your book. We’ve all heard about outliers in each genre who were published far below or far over these word counts.

Use these figures as a starting point for your writing objectives.

Know what readers expect as far as word includes in your classification regardless of whether the reader isn’t aware of their assumptions for how long a book ought to be.

I hope now you understand what’s the ideal book size of different niches and how many words is the average book?

It’s fine whether your book is currently too long or too short.

That is the purpose of revision. Some writers including me write quickly and then have to go back and fill in the blanks. Some folks who make me jealous compose long pieces that must be edited and tightened. This is quite natural. On a first draught, very few people get it properly. What’s more, guess what? You still managed to finish a draught! OMG – rejoice, regardless of your word count!

Then, at that point, will chip away at improving it.

I’m sure you’re still trying to persuade yourself that your work can be published as is, and you’re coming up with excuses. There are always exceptions to the rule. My book club recently finished reading The Nightingale, a 167,000-word novel. Although I did not find this to be excessively long, Kristin Hannah is a bestselling author.

Before The Nightingale, she had been publishing for more than 20 years, and the rest of her books are much shorter, closer to 100,000-120,000 words, which is well within historical fiction’s range.

Novellas are also available for purchase. I recently finished rereading Susan Minot’s Rapture, which is roughly 35,000 words long and fantastic. However, a publisher would be crazy to take on a novella by a rookie author who hadn’t already been writing for publications like The New Yorker.

Yes, now and again, a book by a debut author is produced that is abnormally long or short. However, think about what happens much more oftentimes? The Powerball is won by someone. If you think you’re the happy exception and have the Midas Touch, get over to the convenience store as soon as possible, my buddy. You’ll save a ton of time thusly.

When should you be concerned with word count?

Don’t think about it all when you’re writing. Simply put, write. As I previously stated, the majority of first draughts will be either too long or too short (not to mention too boring or confusing or predictable, with plot holes and caricatures and flat dialogue to boot). For the love of God, they’re draughts! On revision, we clean them up.

Give word count a good hard look when you’re ready to pitch agents, small publishers, or self-publish.

Again, why raise the issue of word count if it is a red flag for agents and editors? You want to do everything you can to improve your chances because the competition is so stiff.

It may not seem fair that someone would criticize your book before reading it in its entirety, but you would do the same. Would you give a sledgehammer to the person who quotes you $999 or the one who asks for $20,000 if you were in the market for a kitchen makeover (roughly the same degree of stress and commitment as an agency taking on an author) and the market rate is $10,000?

Remember that this person is completely new to the position and has no previous experience. No way, no how. You’ll take their business card, close the door as quickly as possible, and examine the contractors who appear to know what they’re doing more closely.

When it comes to self-publishing, does the word count matter?

Both yes and no. When you self-publish, you are the boss, copyrighter and your book may be as long as you want it to be. You can call that 12,000-word piece a book, however, will pursuers feel like they got what they anticipated? Similarly, if you don’t mind paying for printing, you may self-publish a 400,000-word tome. Should you, however, do so?

Let’s think about movies for a moment because they’re a little easier to mass-produce and you’re more likely to have seen the same ones.

There are several fantastic three-hour films available. Almost none of them were written, produced, or acted in by new people. No one wants to take a chance on an unknown team’s extra-long narrative. Even when you consider most three-hour films with well-known directors and performers, many of them might have been cut in half. Did Titanic need every single scenario in which they became submerged again?

If you want to ensure that your book or ghostwriting provides the finest possible reading experience, you should edit it so that it is completely fleshed out while still being a finely written page-turner.

Fixing an excessively long book

This is the point at which authors groan and say, “OK, I’ll split it into multiple books.” This sounds like an easy way out, like padding a too-short book, but it’s not the solution.

If we’re talking about a novel or memoir, you’ll need a detailed, fulfilling story arc in which the protagonist urgently wants something, faces challenges in obtaining it, and emerges a transformed person at the conclusion.

Each following book would have to be able to stand alone and take the reader on a complete journey. You can’t just publish a chapter of a book and expect people to wait for the whole of the novel to be published later. Books can certainly be part of a series as kids books usually are, but each one has its story arc.

Breaking off in the middle of a non-fiction book is just as problematic. When an author effectively produces multiple books on a topic, they do not quit in the middle of each one. Each book has its theme or technique, or they may have taken the same concept but tweaked it for a new readership.

FAQ’s

1) How many words are in a 100-page book?

Totally depends on the font you’re using but 250-300 words per page is a good rule of thumb. As a result, the overall word count should be around 25,000.

2) How many words are in a 200-page book?

A 200-page book has a word count of between 50000 and 60000 words. It varies depending on the work’s complexity, the language used, the font and letter sizes used, and so on.

3) How many words are in a 300-page book?

It depends on the font and size of the text, as well as the size of the page. Most books are between 65,000 and 90,000 words long. This varies by genre, target audience, and author.

4) How many words are in a 400-page book?

When it comes to a 400-page book. There are approximately 100,000 words. It depends on font size and writer on how they put it up.

5) How many words are in a 500-page book?

Let me tell you how many words are in the 500-page book. Total words in a 500-page book are 150,000-200,000.

Conclusion

There are valid reasons for standard word counts in most published publications, but don’t get caught up in the numbers. Find out why your book is too lengthy or too short, and then change it.

Don’t make it repetitive!! You must maintain your focus. Rather than defending your book’s numbers, get down to business and edit, edit, edit.

I hope with this article, all your concerns about the average book word count and now you’ll be able to use this valuable information into producing the book that is going to be the top-selling.

If you are looking for a professional book writing service, then get in touch with Mczell Book Writing today.

I’m writing a novel. You’re writing a novel. We’re all writing or reading novels. But how long is too long? How short is too short? If you’re obsessing over how many words your novel should be, it’s a good idea to consult the word counts of popular novels as a frame of reference. In this post, you’ll find the word counts of 175 (well, it’s actually 177, but 175 sounds cleaner!) classic, bestselling, award-winning novels, from books you’d recognize from high school English to recent hits. Along the way, I’ll analyze the word counts and note a few interesting trends. It’s my hope this list can be a resource for other writers like me who wonder how long a novel should be. I hope to follow it up with a children’s literature specific list.

The links will take you to Amazon (affiliate links), and if you’d like to know my sources, you can view them in this Google spreadsheet.

Also of note, check out my list of the 20+ best books on creative writing:

A few series in focus

Before we dive into the list, let’s explore the word count of a few popular fantasy series and one favorite, bestselling author who racks up high word counts.

Word count of Harry Potter series

The total word count of J.K. Rowling’s seven-book Harry Potter series is 1,084,625. That’s like reading David Foster Wallaces’s Infinite Jest (488,940) twice.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone	J. K. Rowling	77,325
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	J. K. Rowling	84,799
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban	J. K. Rowling	106,821
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	J. K. Rowling	190,858
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	J. K. Rowling	257,154
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince	J. K. Rowling	169,441
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows	J. K. Rowling	198,227

Word count of The Chronicles of Narnia series

The total word count of C.S. Lewis’ seven-book Chronicles of Narnia series is 345,535. That’s approximately the same length as Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote (344,665).

The Magician’s Nephew	C.S. Lewis	64,480
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe	C.S. Lewis	38,421
Prince Caspain	C.S. Lewis	46,290
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	C.S. Lewis	53,960
The Silver Chair	C.S. Lewis	51,022
The Horse and His Boy	C.S. Lewis	48,029
The Last Battle	C.S. Lewis	43,333

Word count of Earthsea series

The word count of Ursula K. Le Guin’s six-book Earthsea series is 480,503. That’s like reading Stephen King’s The Stand: Uncut at 471,485 words and a third of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea at 26,601 words.

A Wizard of Earthsea	Ursula K. Le Guin	56,533
The Tombs of Atuan	Ursula K. Le Guin	45,939
The Farthest Shore	Ursula K. Le Guin	60,591
Tehanu	Ursula K. Le Guin	99,200
Tales from Earthsea	Ursula K. Le Guin	128,960
The Other Wind	Ursula K. Le Guin	89,280

Word count of His Dark Materials series

The word count of Philip Pullman’s three-book His Dark Materials fantasy series is 390,575, about the length of reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion (130,115) three times.

Word count of Game of Thrones series

The word count of George R. R. Martin’s five-volume A Song of Ice and Fire series is 1,770,000. The series is incomplete, so there could still be more words on the way! That’s about the length of Stephen King’s It (445,134) times four (1,781,736).

A Game of Thrones	George R. R. Martin	298,000
A Clash of Kings	George R. R. Martin	326,000
A Storm of Swords	George R. R. Martin	424,000
A Feast for Crows	George R. R. Martin	300,000
A Dance with Dragons	George R. R. Martin	422,000

Word count of the Lord of the Rings series

The word count of J. R. R. Tolkien’s four-volume Lord of the Rings series is 576,459. To equal that, read J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (190,858), Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (169,441), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (198,227) plus about half of Albert Camus’ The Stranger (36,014)

The Hobbit	J. R. R. Tolkien	95,356
The Fellowship of the Ring	J. R. R. Tolkien	187,790
The Two Towers	J. R. R. Tolkien	156,198
The Return of the King	J. R. R. Tolkien	137,115

Author in focus: word count of Stephen King’s books

It’s also fun to look at the word counts in the work of one author in particular, so I decided to do a little exploring and find out the word counts of some books by a beloved author, Stephen King, a prolific writer with millions of words among his many books. In this list, you can see that The Stand: Uncut is 471,485 words. His writing guide and memoir On Writing is 79,139, meaning The Stand holds approximately six (5.957) books of On Writing‘s length within it. On Writing is one of my favorite guides to writing. I’d gladly take more of those over another novel. (Though I’d of course take The Stand over any novel ever.) For more Stephen King book word counts, see this very detailed Reddit thread.

Carrie	Stephen King	61,343
‘Salem’s Lot	Stephen King	152,204
The Shining	Stephen King	165,581
The Stand (uncut version)	Stephen King	471,485
The Dark Tower: Gunslinger	Stephen King	56,583
Pet Sematary	Stephen King	142,664
It	Stephen King	445,134
On Writing	Stephen King	79,139

Now we’ll move along to look at this list of 177 word counts of popular novels.

Books that are 500,000+ words long

Here we see some of the longest novels in the world in the 500,000-word and up level. (And for more on that, check out the Wikipedia entry for List of Longest Novels.) Many people put reading Marcel Proust’s seven-volume In Search of Lost Time series on their reading bucket list. I’ve only read the first volume, Swann’s Way, and loved it, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to reading the rest of the books.

In Search of Lost Time books	Marcel Proust	1,267,069
A Suitable Boy	Vikram Seth	591,554
Atlas Shrugged	Ayn Rand	561,996
War and Peace	Leo Tolstoy	561,304
Les Miserables	Victor Hugo	530,982

Books that are 400,000 words long

Think you can manage writing a 400,000-word novel? If you were going to write 1,000 words a day, that would take 400 days, more than a year. And if you only manage 500 words a day, double that to 800 days, over 2 years. Still, if it’s fame and glory you’re chasing, why not? David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is a cult classic. And Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind won the Pulitzer Prize. Maybe bigger is better.

Infinite Jest	David Foster Wallace	488,940
The Stand (uncut version)	Stephen King	471,485
It	Stephen King	445,134
A Storm of Swords	George R. R. Martin	424,000
A Dance with Dragons	George R. R. Martin	422,000
Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	418,053

Books that are 300,000 words long

If you’re writing a 300,000-word novel, you’re in good company. Some of the most beloved classics in literature sit in the 300,000 word range. And some of these are downright page turners. Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander has to be the quickest 305,000 words I’ve ever read.

The Count of Monte Cristo	Alexandre Dumas	375,695
Lonesome Dove	Larry McMurtry	365,712
The Brothers Karamazov	Fyodor Dostoyevsky	364,153
Bleak House	Charles Dickens	360,947
David Copperfield	Charles Dickens	358,000
Anna Karenina	Leo Tolstoy	349,736
Don Quixote	Miguel de Cervantes	344,665
A Clash of Kings	George R. R. Martin	326,000
Gravity’s Rainbow	Thomas Pynchon	324,945
Middlemarch	George Eliot	316,059
The Fountainhead	Ayn Rand	311,596
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell	Susanna Clarke	308,931
Outlander	Diana Gabaldon	305,000
A Feast for Crows	George R. R. Martin	300,000

Books that are 200,000 words long

Writing 200,000 words seems manageable. Interestingly, the first book in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, A Game of Thrones, is also his shortest while J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth and longest book in her series. Here we also have the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and Salman Rushdie’s Man Booker-winning Midnight’s Children. Two classics of the Western canon, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment also reach the 200,000 word novel club.

A Game of Thrones	George R. R. Martin	298,000
Ulysses	James Joyce	265,222
Cloudsplitter	Russell Banks	260,742
Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix	J. K. Rowling	257,154
A Prayer for Owen Meany	John Irving	236,061
East of Eden	John Steinbeck	225,395
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay	Michael Chabon	216,020
Crime and Punishment	Fyodor Dostoyevsky	211,591
Midnight’s Children	Salman Rushdie	208,773
Moby Dick	Herman Melville	206,052

Books that are 150,000 words long

I split up the 100,000 – 200,000 category in two to make it easier to grasp. Plus, that 50,000 word difference is significant, at least according to the good people of National Novel Writing Month, who count a winning novel at 50,000 words. In this category, we have three books in the Harry Potter series. We have a few modern classics of literary fiction, including Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. We see a few fantasy and science fiction novels here, too, like Dune, American Gods, and Eragon.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows	J. K. Rowling	198,227
The Corrections	Jonathan Franzen	196,774
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	J. K. Rowling	190,858
The Fellowship of the Ring	J. R. R. Tolkien	187,790
Dune	Frank Herbert	187,240
Memoirs of a Geisha	Arthur Golden	186,418
Jane Eyre	Charlotte Brontë	183,858
Little Women (Books 1 and 2)	Louisa May Alcott	183,833
Great Expectations	Charles Dickens	183,349
American Gods	Neil Gaiman	183,222
The Poisonwood Bible	Barbara Kingsolver	177,679
Catch-22	Joseph Heller	174,269
For Whom the Bell Tolls	Ernest Hemingway	174,106
The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	169,481
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince	J. K. Rowling	169,441
White Teeth	Zadie Smith	169,389
The Amber Spyglass	Philip Pullman	168,640
Uncle Tom’s Cabin	Harriet Beecher Stowe	166,622
The Shining	Stephen King	165,581
Cold Mountain	Charles Frazier	161,511
Dracula	Bram Stoker	160,363
The Kitchen God’s Wife	Amy Tan	159,276
Alias Grace	Margaret Atwood	157,665
Eragon	Christopher Paolini	157,000
The Two Towers	J. R. R. Tolkien	156,198
Watership Down	Richard Adams	156,154
Oliver Twist	Charles Dickens	155,960
Emma	Jane Austen	155,887
The Time Traveler’s Wife	Audrey Niffenegger	155,717
‘Salem’s Lot	Stephen King	152,204

Books that are 100,000 words long

At 100,000 words, several of these novels are bestsellers. If you want to write a hit, this might be the sweet spot. Also, we’ve got Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, all three of which were adapted for Oscar-nominated movies. Might this be the perfect length for a film version of your novel? It’s certainly something to consider. Note that we’ve got the first novels in three beloved YA fantasy series here: Twilight, Divergent, and Throne of Glass. If you’re writing YA fantasy, aim your word count high.

Gone Girl	Gillian Flynn	145,719
The Last of the Mohicans	James Fenimore Cooper	145,469
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn	Betty Smith	145,092
One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcia Marquez	144,523
Pet Sematary	Stephen King	142,664
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea	Jules Verne	138,128
Snow Falling on Cedars	David Guterson	138,098
Moll Flanders	Daniel Defoe	138,087
The Return of the King	J. R. R. Tolkien	137,115
A Tale of Two Cities	Charles Dickens	135,420
Schindler’s List	Thomas Keneally	134,710
The Silmarillion	J. R. R. Tolkien	130,115
Tales from Earthsea	Ursula K. Le Guin	128,960
Sense and Sensibility	Jane Austen	126,194
Atonement	Ian McEwan	123,378
Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen	120,697
My Sister’s Keeper	Jodi Picoult	119,529
Twilight (Book 1)	Stephanie Meyer	118,875
The Tenth Circle	Jodi Picoult	114,779
Walden	Henry David Thoreau	114,634
Throne of Glass	Sarah J. Maas	113,665
The Golden Compass	Philip Pullman	112,815
McTeague	Frank Norris	112,737
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Mark Twain	109,571
The Subtle Knife	Philip Pullman	109,120
Wuthering Heights	Emily Brontë	107,945
Gullivers Travels	Jonathan Swift	107,349
Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban	J. K. Rowling	106,821
Divergent	Veronica Roth	105,143
A Distant Shore	Caryl Phillips	103,090
Ender’s Game	Orson Scott Card	100,609
To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	100,388

Books that are 90,000 words long

We’ve dropped a digit and are now at five-figure word counts, but that doesn’t mean the prestige (or bestseller potential) drops, too. Here at 90,000 words, we see Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games alongside Paula Hawkins’ frenzied thriller The Girl on the Train and Toni Morrison’s lush literary Song of Solomon. And 90,000 words seems quite doable. At 1,000 words a day, you’d be finished in 90 days, or three months. And if you really hit your stride at 1,000 words, you’d finish four 90,000-word books in a year. Not bad if you’re planning a series!

The Hunger Games (Book 1)	Suzanne Collins	99,750
Welcome to the Monkey House	Kurt Vonnegut	99,560
All the Pretty Horses	Cormac McCarthy	99,277
Tehanu	Ursula K. Le Guin	99,200
Anne of Green Gables	Lucy Maud Montgomery	97,364
The Girl on the Train	Paula Hawkins	95,410
The Hobbit	J. R. R. Tolkien	95,356
The Left Hand of Darkness	Ursula K. Le Guin	94,240
Song of Solomon	Toni Morrison	92,400
Joy Luck Club	Amy Tan	91,419

Books that are 80,000 words long

There are many bestsellers and award-winning novels in the 80,000-word novel society, like Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning Gilead and the Booker Prize-winning The English Patient. But what strikes me most about the books in this category is The Diary of a Young Girl. I take particular inspiration from Anne Frank’s diary, which is 82,662 words long. That’s as long as some of the classics of literature, including 1984 and Persuasion, and shows how insightful, observant, intelligent, and hopeful Anne Frank was while writing her diary. What an accomplishment. It stirs you on, doesn’t it?

Waiting	Hin Ja	89,297
The Other Wind	Ursula K. Le Guin	89,280
1984	George Orwell	88,942
Persuasion	Jane Austen	87,978
Pere Goriot	Honore de Balzac	87,846
The Unbearable Lightness of Being	Milan Kundera	85,199
Gilead	Marilynne Robinson	84,845
Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets	J. K. Rowling	84,799
Cry, the Beloved Country	Alan Paton	83,774
The Diary of a Young Girl	Anne Frank	82,762
The English Patient	Michael Ondaatje	82,370
The Dark Is Rising	Susan Cooper	82,143
The Secret Garden	Frances Hodgson Burnett	80,398

Books that are 70,000 words long

It feels a bit strange to know that one of my favorite novels of all time, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is 73,404 words long. It’s like knowing how many words are in the bible, if Catcher is your misfit religion like mine was. We see in this batch of 70,000-word novels the first book in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series at 77,325. If you’re keeping track, you could write that in 77 days, a little over two months at 1,000 words each day.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep	Phillip K. Dick	79,360
On Writing	Stephen King	79,139
The Picture of Dorian Gray	Oscar Wilde	78,462
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone	J. K. Rowling	77,325
Frankenstein	Mary Shelley	74,800
A Farewell to Arms	Ernest Hemingway	74,240
The Catcher in the Rye	J.D. Salinger	73,404
White Fang	Jack London	72,071
The Woman Warrior	Maxine Hong Kingston	70,957

Books that are 60,000 words long

From John Green to Virginia Woolf to Terry Pratchett, the authors who have written beloved 60,000-word novels know how to pack a lot of meaning into a relatively short book. If you’re looking to expand your novel beyond NaNoWriMo length, take some comfort that you don’t have to stretch too far past the 50,000 word draft to pen a future classic.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer	Mark Twain	69,066
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere	ZZ Packer	68,410
The Sun Also Rises	Ernest Hemingway	67,707
A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess	67,280
The Fault in Our Stars	John Green	67,203
Treasure Island	Robert Louis Stevenson	66,950
The Color Purple	Alice Walker	66,556
The Color of Magic	Terry Pratchett	65,113
The Martian Chronicles	Ray Bradbury	64,768
The Magician’s Nephew	C.S. Lewis	64,480
Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	63,766
The Scarlet Letter	Nathaniel Hawthorne	63,604
Mrs. Dalloway	Virginia Woolf	63,422
All Quiet on the Western Front	Erich Remarque	61,922
Carrie	Stephen King	61,343
The Farthest Shore	Ursula K. Le Guin	60,591

Books that are 50,000 words long

Several classics of children’s literature are comfortably in the 50,000-word novel range, including Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. The novels in this category, including Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer-winning The Hours (one of my favorite books), prove that you don’t have to type your fingers off in order to craft something that takes your reader’s breath away. It’s also interesting to note that The Hours is an homage to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, which we learned in the last category, is longer (at 63,422). Sometimes you can take inspiration for a retelling and capture the beauty of the original in far fewer words.

Lord of the Flies	William Golding	59,900
War of the Worlds	H.G. Wells	59,796
Black Beauty	Anna Sewell	59,645
The Wind in the Willows	Kenneth Grahame	58,428
A Separate Peace	John Knowles	56,787
As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner	56,695
The Dark Tower: Gunslinger	Stephen King	56,583
A Wizard of Earthsea	Ursula K. Le Guin	56,533
The Hours	Michael Cunningham	54,243
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	C.S. Lewis	53,960
The Silver Chair	C.S. Lewis	51,022

Books that are 40,000 words long

Now, none of these authors would win NaNoWriMo with their 40,000-word novel, but they’re obviously playing the long game. This list of 40,000-word novels should be subtitled: “How to write a book they’ll teach in high school English.” It’s like a who’s who of the English curriculum: Fitzgerald, Vonnegut, Hinton, Bradbury, hell, probably Nicholas Sparks… I mean, who knows? Clearly, even though we’re getting down to the end of this list of word counts of favorite novels, there are still heavy hitters in the lower range.

Slaughterhouse-Five	Kurt Vonnegut	49,459
The Notebook	Nicholas Sparks	48,978
The Outsiders	S.E. Hinton	48,523
The Horse and His Boy	C.S. Lewis	48,029
The Red Badge of Courage	Stephen Crane	47,180
The Great Gatsby	F. Scott Fitzgerald	47,094
Prince Caspain	C.S. Lewis	46,290
Fahrenheit 451	Ray Bradbury	46,118
The Tombs of Atuan	Ursula K. Le Guin	45,939
The Last Battle	C.S. Lewis	43,333

Books that are 30,000 words long

As an aspiring children’s literature writer, I’m pleasantly surprised and inspired to learn that Roald Dahl’s classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is only 30,644 words long. You can manage that in a month, for sure! It’s also interesting to note that James M. Cain’s noir novel Double Indemnity is only 30,072. And at 30,000 words, most of these novels fall into the novella length, which is generally between 17,500 and 40,000 words.

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe	C.S. Lewis	38,421
The Stranger	Albert Camus	36,014
Old Yeller	Fred Gipson	35,978
The Time Machine	H.G. Wells	32,149
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Roald Dahl	30,644
Double Indemnity	James M. Cain	30,072

Books that are 20,000 words long

And here we are at the last category I’ve included: novels that are 20,000 words long. When you read Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and George Orwell’s Animal Farm, you’re reading some of the shortest novels (really, novellas) you’ll find in bound books, yet these alarming, still-shocking stories show you can make a huge impact in just a few words.

Animal Farm	George Orwell	29,966
Of Mice and Men	John Steinbeck	29,160
The Old Man and the Sea	Ernest Hemingway	26,601
The Mouse and the Motorcycle	Beverly Cleary	22,416
The Metamorphosis	Franz Kafka	21,180

What’s the word count of your novel? What are some of your favorite short novels or long novels? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on writing and readings books of all lengths.

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It’s one of the first questions new authors ask us: “How long should my book be? How many words should I write in my manuscript?” Here is some useful guidance, from children’s books to fantasy novels.

Go straight to the Infographic

First-time authors come to us for help to take their book idea to the next level. One of the first issues to address is the desired word count of the book. That determines everything from the ghostwriting fee to the outline they’ll need for their manuscript. We get questions like:

• How many words make a novel?
• How many words should your first novel be?
• What should be a picture book word count?
• What should be a fantasy novel word count?
• What’s the minimum word count for a novel?
• What should be the average chapter word count?

There are no “rules” as to book length, nor as to chapter length, although there are some publishing industry guidelines. What follows is best practice to meet those industry expectations. First-time authors are advised to follow them pretty closely if you want to get published. Pay attention to the average amount of words in a book of your genre. Once you have a name for yourself, it’s easier to break the rules.

If you plan to self-publish, you obviously don’t have to follow the guidelines. But you still might want to understand them. They might make you change your approach. For instance, you might want to transform one book into a trilogy. Or you might ask yourself whether you have enough in your story to engage the audience.

If you self-publish, you are in control.

If you have made a name for yourself, you might even be in control with a traditional publisher.

Place the Harry Potter series side by side and see how much thicker The Half Blood Prince is than all the others – almost three times as long as the first two books, in fact. After the first two books, the following volumes got progressively longer, as J.K. Rowling had made a name for herself by then.

But if you are just starting out, the publisher is in control. How many words you should write is how many the publisher wants you to write. Here are the best practices for word counts in the publishing industry today.

In this word count guide

• Word count for children’s books
• Board book word count
• Picture book word count
• Picture books for older children
• Early reader book word count
• Early chapter book word count
• Middle grade book word count
• Young adult novel word count
• Hi-lo books
• General fiction and novels
• Romance novel word count
• Fantasy novel word count
• Self-help and how-to book word count
• Memoir and business book word count
• Infographic: average book word count by genre and age
• Should your book follow the average book word count?

Word counts for children’s books

The biggest challenge in determining manuscript length is for young audiences. There are so many factors.

First, at a very young age, parents read to their children.

Then, children start reading on their own, but parents still read to them. Books they read and books read to them might be of different lengths.

As children learn to read, some leap forward, while others lag behind. Complicating matters is that children in the 8-12 age range might read both picture books and chapter books at the same time, often depending on the type of story or topic.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Board books (0-4)

If you are wondering what a board book is, it’s small book of just a couple dozen ‘pages’, often fewer. Those pages are made from card stock a few millimeters thick. Toddlers can’t rip those pages (on purpose, or by accident). Neither can adults, by the way – get out your chain saw!

Some board books have no words at all. Some have up to 250 or 300 words. In most cases, board books have fewer than 100 words. That is so that parents can read just a few words for each picture a young toddler views.

Moo, Baa, La La La! by Sandra Boynton is one of my favorites. It runs 14 pages, and if my memory serves me well, about 60 words.

Picture books (3-8)

Picture books are often read to children by their parents. But older toddlers and kindergarteners have a bigger attention span and are more interested in hearing the story, not just looking at the pictures. As they start to learn to read, these are the books they practice on.

Some picture books target toddlers, whereas others target early readers. Many children learn to read on the very books their parents read to them earlier, so picture books often double up for both purposes.

Perhaps the most famous book to fall into this category is The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper. It’s 40-48 pages (depending on which edition) contains 1,200 or more words.

Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are runs just 338 words.

Let’s say that a typical picture book for younger children would be about 500 words. That’s roughly the length of Simone B and the Magical Mirror by Dr. Denita Bottoms.

Picture books for older children (6-10)

Older children who can read a bit, but are still very much learning, might like a few more words.
Perhaps I should have included The Little Engine that Could in this category.

There is so much overlap, especially since different children learn to read at different paces. This is particularly noticeable as they move from picture books to chapter books.

I saw this discrepancy in my own children. One had read the entire Harry Potter series in both English and French before entering grade four – before they began teaching English at the school. Meanwhile, my other child was sticking mostly to picture books at that age, and sometimes struggling with them.

Where there was no discrepancy was in their love for Robert Munsch’s books. They range from 500 to 1,000 words, and it was many years before either kid grew tired of them.

The same goes for The Berenstain Bears, which range from 1,000 to 1,200 words. Let’s call this category 1,000 words, give or take a few hundred.

Early reader books (5-9)

These are the books kids reads once they know how to read, but still have a very limited vocabulary. Through these books, they learn to read faster and build a bigger vocabulary.

These books often have pictures to support the story. That’s the evolving difference between picture books and early reader books. They move from words supporting pictures, to pictures supporting words.

Still, early reader books aren’t very long, typically 2,000 words, although they might range up to 3,000.

Early chapter books (6-10)

By age 6, some children are reading a significant amount. By age 10, most children are. Early chapter book word counts of 4,000 to 12,000 give them something to keep reading, without being so long as to discourage them.

Early chapter books are designed to keep a young mind’s attention. For instance, Captain Underpants books come in at about 5,000-6,000 words. Flying Cowboys and Confetti Rain: Dreams of a PBR Bull by Debbie Felkins Tamez comes in over 10,000 words.

All in all, 8,000 words would be a good average for this category.

Middle grade (MG) chapter books (8-12)

This is where young minds start getting serious. Middle grade chapter book word counts range from 20,000 to 60,000. And that is a length that many adults find comfortable, too.

I grew up on Homer Price books by Robert McCloskey, which were typically just over 20,000 words. The Goosebumps series is often associated with this reading level, and author R.L. Stine says they run about 23,000 words.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a classic by by C.S. Lewis has 38,000 words. The full series of seven books has almost 350,000 words, or an average word count of 50,000 per book.

And the The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, another classic I grew up on, runs 42,000 words.

So 40,000 words is a good guideline for middle grade chapter books.

Young adult (YA) novels (12 and up)

Frankly, young adult starts becoming indistinguishable from adult as far as word count is concerned. When kids under 12 were reading the first couple Harry Potter volumes, both around 80,000 words, it almost makes you throw your hands up in the air.

Paper Towns, by John Green, is also 80,000 words long. His The Fault in Our Stars is 65,000 words long.

And The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas runs over 110,000 words.

So when I say that the average YA novel word count is 40,000-75,000 words long and even more, the “even more” part is perfectly normal.

However, not every young adult book can be that long. It takes an exceptional manuscript to get accepted outside industry norms. A 60,000-word manuscript is much more likely to get accepted by a publisher than one that is much longer or much shorter.

Asmaa Jamil’s Magical Mountain fits this perfectly, with a word count of 50,000. It’s a fairy tale, so it could also have been considered middle grade, even at this length.

The exception to the rule, as with adult books, is YA fantasy word count. Fantasy books can always be longer. That is likely because the reader has the world-building to absorb in addition to the characters and the plot.

Hi-lo books

This is an interesting category, and one that most people have never heard of. These books offer adult or teen stories and topics at a grade school reading level. They serve three primary niches:

• struggling or reluctant readers in high school
• adults who might not read well because of a learning disability
• adults who are learning a second or third language

What these niches have in common is that they represent people whose interests are way above their reading levels. Most books at their reading levels are written about subjects that interest little kids.

Have you ever tried to learn another language, and found that the only books you could read in that language were children’s books about children’s topics. Not very interesting to an adult.

The “Hi” in Hi-lo refers to highly engaging, age-appropriate content. The “lo” stands for low reading level.

The length of these books depends on a person’s reading level. They can be anywhere from 500 to 20,000 words. I won’t even try to identify a typical word count for the infographic below.

General fiction novel (mystery, thriller, crime, historical, etc.)

As you can probably guess by now, books come in such a wide variety of lengths, that it is hard to generalize on words in a novel. The minimum word count for a novel is 40,000 words, although some people in the industry will scoff at a book that short.

I won’t.

The average word count for a novel is… Again, I won’t.

How long should your first novel be? Each November, NaNoWriMo hosts a novel-writing challenge. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is for up-and-coming writers to create novels of 50,000 words. That’s not a bad length for your first novel, regardless of genre.

The most important thing about your story is that you include every single word you need to make it the very best story possible. The second most important thing about your story is that you don’t add in a single word that doesn’t make it better.

What if the ideal length of your story is 30,000 words? Then it’s a novella. Anything 15,000-40,000 words is a novella. Novellas can be harder to sell to publishing houses, but if your story is perfect that way, don’t add in another 10,000 or 20,000 words that only make the story weaker.

And chapter length can be just as tricky. Nora Roberts typically writes chapters of 3,000 to 6,000 words. Michael Crichton writes chapters just as long, but he also famously throws in short, snappy chapters of 500 or 600 words. It’s hard to define the “ideal” or even the “average” chapter word count.

So, how long should a novel manuscript be? The average novel word count by genre is almost impossible to define. As with Hi-lo novels, I won’t try to identify the average word length of a novel for the infographic below. Romance novel word count and fantasy novel word count are exceptions that I address below.

Your novel length should be exactly the number of words needed to tell your story. And your chapter word count should be just as many as it takes to tell that segment of the story.

Romance novel word count

Romance novels are often short and sweet (and steamy). A typical paperback romance novel runs 50,000 words. Harlequin, the most famous purveyor of romance novels, even specifies that they look for 50,000-word long manuscripts.

That is not to say that romance novels can’t be longer, even epic, especially historical romance or other sub-niches. But if you plan to get published by a mainstream publisher, best follow the guidelines and meet the expectations.

Fantasy novel word count

The longest books are fantasy novels. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is famous for being almost 600,000 words long. That’s spread over four volumes, including The Hobbit. Still, that’s an average of 150,000 words per book. You’ll have to draw a lot of baths to get through those volumes.

Similarly, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman runs 400,000 words across three volumes.

The minimum I would write for a fantasy novel is 75,000 words, but I would say that 100,000 words is a good length. Obviously, the sky is almost the limit, so don’t be shy with your fantasy novel word count. But keep to good story telling. Remember what I wrote above:

The second most important thing about your story is that you don’t add in a single word that doesn’t make it better.

Amateur writers tend to add a lot of unnecessary words. And fantasy writers tend to add in a lot of additional words on top of the unnecessary ones.

Self-help and how-to books

Looking at non-fiction, my Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness has a word count of just over 60,000.

On the other hand, Mary Banda’s From Chaos to Contentment has just over 30,000 words.

So how many words should you write in a self-help or how-to book?

Both self-help books and how-to books are practical texts. People buy them expecting to learn something, so they have to be short to avoid intimidating the reader. Let’s face it, nobody wants to get lost in a how-to book.

Self-help books typically range from 30,000 words to 70,000 words. I would say that 50,000 words is a good typical self-help book length.

Memoirs and business books

Unlike self-help and how-to, people buy business books and memoirs to be inspired and to read stories. They still want to learn something, but they want to learn through stories rather than through lessons.

Business books and memoirs can be longer than self-help and how-to, but a lot depends on the topic.

Your autobiography might not have a high word count. Readers are not be ready to invest weeks reading through the life story of somebody they don’t know.

Marina Kaye’s memoir The Black Veil of Deceit has about 40,000 words. While on the short side, that is not unusual for a person who’s story is interesting, but whose name is unknown.

On the other hand, biographies of famous people can be quite long. I’ll never forget seeing Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography many years ago. I just stared at this huge, think book. I have no idea what the word count was, but I would estimate a gazillion, give or take a few pages. And it sold well.

Your autobiography would typically range from 40,000 to 80,000 words, unless you have a very special story to tell. Let’s split the difference at 60,000 words.

Business books would be a similar length, unless they are how-to topics. For instance, Victor Chiu’s how-to finance book Wall Street Kitchen has just over 50,000 words.

This is an ideal length for any how-to book: long enough to be of substance, but short enough to not intimidate potential readers.

On the other hand, a business book promising the inside story on a business development or how a famous entrepreneur disrupted an industry would warrant a much longer manuscript.

Average book word count by genre and age – infographic

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Should your book follow the average book word count?

So how many words should your books be? As many as you like.

Frankly, this guide is just for information. Use it to improve your story if it helps. Use it to make your book more saleable. Use it to make creative decisions and business decisions, if you wish. Or use it simply to laugh at how silly the guidelines are and at how many well-known books break them every day – because there is no “average” word count for a book.

If you’re looking for word counts of your favorite books or series, then you’ve come to the right place. Whether you’re just curious about how many words are in these books or you’re writing a book and want to compare the length of your novel to these famous tomes, then read on to find the word counts of famous books and series.

The average word count for a typical novel ranges anywhere from 70,000 to 120,000 words, with the average hanging around 90,000. 

How Many Words Is Harry Potter by JK Rowling?

When combined, the total Harry Potter series word count is 1,084,625 words. At an average reading rate, it will take about 60 hours to read Harry Potter.

Word Count of Each Harry Potter Book

The Sorcerer’s Stone – 77,325 words
The Chamber of Secrets – 84,799 words
The Prisoner of Azkaban – 106,821 words
The Goblet of Fire – 190,858 words
The Order of the Phoenix – 257,154 words
The Half-Blood Prince – 169,441 words
The Deathly Hallows – 198,227 words
Total – 1,084,625 words

How Many Words Is Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien?

When combined, the total Lord of the Rings word count is over half a million words. At an average reading rate, that’s about 30 hours of reading.

The Hobbit – 95,022 words
The Fellowship of the Ring – 177,227 words
The Two Towers – 143,436 words
The Return of the King – 134,462 words
Total – 550,147 words 

How Many Words Is Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins?

The Hunger Games trilogy has 301,583 words and takes about 17 hours to read.

Hunger Games – 99,750 words
Hunger Games: Catching Fire – 101,564 words
Hunger Games: Mockingjay – 100,269 words
Total – 301,583 words

How Many Words Is Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin?

The entire Game of Thrones series is nearly two million words.

A Game of Thrones – 292,727 words
A Clash of Kings – 318,903 words
A Storm of Swords – 414,604 words
A Feast for Crows – 295,032 words
A Dance with Dragons – 414,788 words
Total – 1,736,054 words

How Many Words Is Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan?

The entire Wheel of Time series has over four million words.

Eye of the World – 305,902 words
The Great Hunt – 267,078 words
The Dragon Reborn – 251,392 words
The Shadow Rising – 393,823 words
The Fires of Heaven – 354,109 words
Lord of Chaos – 389,823 words
A Crown of Swords – 295,028 words
The Path of Daggers – 226,687 words
Winter’s Heart – 238,789 words
Crossroads of Twilight – 271,632 words
Knife of Dreams – 315,163 words
The Gathering Storm – 297,502 words
Towers of Midnight – 327,052 words
A Memory of Light – 353,906 words
Total – 4,287,886 words

How Many Words Is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer?

The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer total 587,246 words which take about 33 hours to read.

Twilight – 118,975 words
New Moon – 132,758 words
Eclipse – 148,971 words
Breaking Dawn – 186,542 words
Total – 587,246 words

Other Famous Books Word Counts

Below are some of the most famous and most-read books along with their word counts.

591,554 words – A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
587,287 words – War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
561,996 words – Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
455,125 words – The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
418,053 words – Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
365,712 words – Lonesome Dove by McMurtry, Larry
364,153 words – The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
349,736 words – Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
316,059 words – Middlemarch by George Eliot
311,596 words – The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
260,742 words – Cloudsplitter by Banks, Russell
257,154 words – Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
236,061 words – A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
225,395 words – East of Eden by John Steinbeck
216,020 words – The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay by Chabon, Michael
211,591 words – Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
208,773 words – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
206,052 words – Moby Dick by Herman Melville
198,901 words – A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
198,227 words – Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
197,517 words – Stones from the River by Hegi, Ursula
196,774 words – The Corrections by Franzen, Jonathan
190,858 words – Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
186,418 words – Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
183,858 words – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
183,833 words – Little Women (Books 1&2) by Louisa May Alcott
183,349 words – Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
177,679 words – The Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver, Barbara
177,227 words – The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
174,269 words – Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
169,481 words – The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinback
169,441 words – Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling
169,389 words – White Teeth by Zadie Smith
166,622 words – Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
161,511 words – Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
159,276 words – The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
157,665 words – Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
156,154 words – Watership Down by Richard Adams
155,960 words – Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
155,887 words – Emma by Jane Austen
145,469 words – Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
145,265 words – Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
145,092 words – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
144,523 words – One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
143,436 words – The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
138,138 words – 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
138,098 words – Snow Falling on Cedars by Guterson, David
138,087 words – Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
135,420 words – A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
134,710 words – Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
134,462 words – The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
130,460 words – War Trash by Jin, Ha
128,886 words – The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
127,776 words – Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
123,378 words – Atonement by Ian McEwan
119,529 words – My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult
119,394 words – Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
114,779 words – The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
114,634 words – Walden by Henry David Thoreau
112,815 words – The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
112,737 words – McTeague by Frank Norris
109,571 words – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
107,945 words – Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
107,349 words – Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift
106,821 words – Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
103,090 words – A Distant Shore by Phillips, Caryl
100,609 words – Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
100,388 words – To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
99,560 words – Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
99,277 words – All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
97,364 words – Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
95,022 words – The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
92,400 words – Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
91,419 words – Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
89,297 words – Waiting by Jin, Ha
88,942 words – Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
87,978 words – Persuasion by Jane Austen
87,846 words – Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac
85,199 words – The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
84,845 words – Gilead by Robinson, Marilynne
84,799 words – Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
83,774 words – Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
82,762 words – Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
82,370 words – The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
82,143 words – The Dark Is Rising by Cooper, Susan
80,398 words – The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
78,462 words – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
77,325 words – Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
73,404 words – The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
72,071 words – White Fang by Jack London
70,957 words – Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
69,066 words – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
68,410 words – Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Packer, ZZ
67,707 words – The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
67,606 words – Ironweed by Kennedy, William
67,203 words – The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
66,950 words – Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
66,556 words – The Color Purple by Alice Walker
64,768 words – The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
63,766 words – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
63,604 words – The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
63,422 words – Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
61,922 words – All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque
60,082 words – The Dew Breaker by Danticat, Edwidge
59,900 words – Lord of the Flies by William Golding
59,635 words – Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
58,428 words – The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
56,787 words – A Separate Peace by John Knowles
56,695 words – As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
54,243 words – The Hours by Cunningham, Michael
49,459 words – Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
48,523 words – The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
47,180 words – The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
47,094 words – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
46,118 words – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
42,715 words – The Tequila Worm by Canales, Viola
36,363 words – Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
35,968 words – Old Yeller by Fred Gipson
30,644 words – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
22,416 words – The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary

See more great book series.

“How many words in a novel?” is a question many writers ask.

“My memoir is 270,000 words long.” I heard these words during a breakout session I led at a local writers’ conference.

An editor friend of mine, Shayla Eaton with Curiouser Editing, was sitting in on the breakout. We gave each other knowing glances, and because I didn’t want to break this poor memoirist’s literary heart, I nodded at Shayla to take the lead. Soon after I heard someone mention the words in a novel, I held my breathe and let the moment pass.

As nicely but as directly as she could, she explained to the memoirist that a 270,000-word memoir was excessive. Even if she self-publishes, the cost per copy would be high, and few readers would slog through such a tome — particularly for someone who’s not famous.

And no agents or publishers would even look past that number.

The prose could be as fleet-footed as Fitzgerald’s. The life story could be as compelling as Lincoln’s. The platform could be as broad as Oprah’s. But no agent would get to know that because they’d see “Memoir: 270,000 words” and hit delete before reading any further.

So, what word count should a memoir be? 

For that matter, how long should any book be? How many words are in a typical novel? What’s the ideal book word count? 

If you’re writing your first novel or any book, you’re probably asking these questions.

The short answer is: long enough to tell the story but short enough to consistently hold the reader’s interest.

The long answer is, well, longer.

Read on to discover:

1. Why do novel word counts matter?
2. How many words in a novel?
3. What should my book word count be?
4. How many words per page can you expect in a book?

Why do novel word counts matter?

Word count matters because every book, regardless of genre, has an inherent contract with the reader. But that contract is dependent upon the book’s genre.

For instance, when a reader picks up a thriller, they have certain expectations of what they’re about to read. That includes scenes like “the hero at the mercy of the villain,” but it also includes book length. Because thrillers are about pulse-pounding action and maybe some character development (especially if it’s part of a series), the word count isn’t massive. Thrillers tend to be 70,000 to 90,000 words.

If you’re not a thriller author, I won’t keep you in suspense. At the end of this article, you’re going to find a guide to suggested word count length for most every popular genre.

My point is that your genre will likely dictate your word count. There are exceptions, like YA books that exceed 250,000 words, but those tend to be outliers, and first-time authors rarely, if ever, get to be an outlier.

Additionally, knowing your word count before you start writing can help you better plan your narrative arc as well as your writing schedule.

How many words in a novel?

And what’s the average length of other types of books?

Before diving into the specifics of genre-based word counts, let’s look at the broader picture of average book length.

For most publishers, a book is “novel-length” when it’s between 50,000 and 110,000 words.

At a writers conference I recently attended, publishing veteran Jane Friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isn’t novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much.

Writer’s Digest recommends 80,000 to 89,999 words as a “100% safe range for literary, mainstream, women’s, romance, mystery, suspense, thriller and horror.” That’s approximately 300 pages of double-spaced type.

In “Outlining Your Book in 3 Easy Steps,” editor Shawn Coyne says, “The average novel today is about 90,000 words. Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words.” But, he also mentions that “The Wizard of Oz was 40,000 words. The Old Man and the Sea was about 25 to 30,000 words, tops.”

Coyne uses the Nanowrimo word-count length of 50,000 words for his examples, calling 50,000 words a good foundation to build upon.

So what does that mean for you, author?

If you’re working on a novel-length book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least — but it’s better to aim for 90,000. Editorial trimming is inevitable.

However, you’ll also want to take your genre into account.

What should my book word count be?

The following are average word-count ranges by genre.

General Fiction Word Counts

• Flash Fiction: 300–1500 words
• Short Story: 1500–30,000 words
• Novellas: 30,000–50,000 words
• Novels: 50,000–110,000 words

Fiction Genres Word Counts

• Mainstream Romance: 70,000–100,000 words
• Subgenre Romance: 40,000–100,000 words
• Science Fiction / Fantasy: 90,000–120,000 (and sometimes 150,000) words
• Historical Fiction: 80,000–100,000
• Thrillers / Horror / Mysteries / Crime: 70,000–90,000 words
• Young Adult: 50,000–80,000

For a great discussion on the fundamentals of fiction, and how to write a great story, check out this podcast interview.

Children’s Books Word Counts

• Picture Books: 300–800 words
• Early Readers: 200–3500 words
• Chapter Books: 4000–10,000 words
• Middle Grade: 25,000–40,000 words

Nonfiction Word Counts

• Standard Nonfiction (Business, Political Science, Psychology, History, etc.): 70,000–80,000 words
• Memoir: 80,000–100,000 words
• Biography: 80,000–200,000 words
• How-to / Self-Help: 40,000–50,000 words

All of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as the definitive word count you must reach in your book. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts.

Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals.

Know what readers expect in terms of your genre’s word count (even if the reader isn’t aware of their expectations when it comes to how long a book is).

How many words per page can you expect in a book? 

This is another common question, and for most writers it should be easy to answer by using a “word count” feature in your writing tool.

If you’re writing in Microsoft Word,”word count” is an option under “Tools.” Prefer something different? Here’s how to find word count in Google Docs. You can also track word count in Scrivener.

The average single-spaced document typed in 12-point font contains about 500 words per page, but that can vary pretty drastically depending on your formatting.

So, if you have an hour to write and aim to get down 300 words, you might wonder, how many pages is 300 words — and the answer is less than one! Doable, right?

If you’re thinking bigger and wondering, for example, how many pages is 50,000 words, simply divide your target word count (50,000) by 500 (since that’s the average words per page). Your answer here is 100 pages.

Don’t let those commas instill fear. Fifty thousand words isn’t that much divided into five days a week for a year. That’s only 193 words per writing day!

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This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.