Word counts of popular ya novels pdf

This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. While page counts are a common but not universal feature of bibliographic metadata, word counts are much less frequently provided and are not at all mandatory. Childrens books explained article, there is a little more to ya than meets the eye. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. As you can see, in general, 120,000 words for me is kind of the upper limit for the genres that allow some leeway in length. Ben mears arguably the main single character of the novel only takes up 20% of. Go to the library and look at the top you define top ya books similar to what you are writing. Shorter novels such as fahrenheit 451, the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, the great gatsby, and slaughterhousefive are between 4050,000 words. This should capture the authors writing style and provide a reliable estimate of the number of words used by the.

Middle grade novels are books written for readers in upper elementary school through middle school. Read our guide to learn what your word count should be and our editors tips. Yoons stupendous sophomore novel takes some of the themes she introduced in her bestselling debut everything, everythingthe power of human connection, loves ability to both save and destroyand expands on them to tell the fastburning, possibly doomed love story of daniel, a dreamy korean american teen on his way to an alumni. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the book, and for ya novels the average is 50,00070,000 words. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. An experienced book editor specializing in editing picture books, middle grade, young adult novels, memoir, fantasy, and literary fiction. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. The daily word counts of 19 famous writers word counter blog. Young adult ya fiction targets boys and girls between the ages of 1218. Young adult fiction ya is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. The best word count for your selfpublished novel self. Where can i find a database of all published books word. Salems lot is kings second novel, published just after carrie.

Apr 03, 2016 and i was surprisedand happy to learn that there really are no norms and patterns with the most famous novels. A word count that is much lower than the acceptable range alerts the agent or editor that your novel or nonfiction book probably hasnt been adequately developed. The actual word count for the hunger games is 99,750 and my utility calculates 94,743 words. We recommend doing this for all ya and adult novels under 150 pages. Start your story with action, dialogue, or set the mood in a way thats so intriguing kids cant walk away. Chapter books, middle grade or novels for young adults no picture books or books for children unable to read for themselves submit first 5,000 words and a synopsis judged by a top literary agent previous winners have gone on to land a. Free romance books online best romantic novels for 2020. From these numbers, we can establish some guidelines. Bestselling author caleb carr may write novels of 250,000 words, but when you pitch your novel and offer up that number, be prepared for a glacial reception. The tone, style, and content of ya novels change significantly, depending on the specific age a writer is targeting. Childrens books explained article, there is a little more to ya. Jun 30, 2015 theres an argument to be made that young adult fiction is the most important genre in literature. List of popular ya novels word counts if youre like me, you obsess over the word count of your novel.

Chapter books will come in at the lower end of the spectrum, while middlegrade books meant for older readers may even slightly exceed 55,000 words. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or. The word counts of some famous novels for comparison. Big, epic stories get anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 words. Book editing services and developmental editing from manuscript editor and former literary agent mary kole. With books like twilight at 118,975 words and divergent at 105,143 words, this genre has been trending higher.

Your chapter length has to work well with the overall word count of the book short chapters create an even distribution of both content and action. Counting chickens a few words about word counts at hope vestergaards site. For a firsttime novelist, it might be a little hard to pitch your ya manuscript to editors if your word count exceeds that number. Jun 18, 2009 the rules of young adult ya genre novels. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. But, he also mentions that the wizard of oz was 40,000 words. Recently, though, the harry potter series and christopher paolinis inheritance trilogy have offered page counts exceeding what anyone thought middlegrade readers could handle. Books of smaller word counts were more common in the 1800s and early 1900s, but the trend for books became longer with the rise of modern printing techniques. For more information on word counts for childrens book, check out this post. The popular novel, which is considered to be among kings best, prominently features a vast number of characters who live in the town salems lot in fact, he spends almost 34 the novel head jumping between various townsfolk. There are exceptions, like ya books that exceed 250,000 words, but those tend to be outliers, and firsttime authors rarely, if ever, get to be an outlier. Unfortunately, they dont offer word count so ive created an algorithm based on the number of pages, genre, and the dimensions of the book. Everything you need to know about novel word counts. Word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing.

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 pagesthe average novel length. You want to begin as close as possible to the storys catalyst, that moment. Yes, having a book that is overly short or overly long for its genre will incrementally decrease your odds of finding traditional publication. For a few examples, lets start on the low end of word count where we have the great gatsby clocking in at approx. Word counts may also be used to calculate measures of readability and to measure typing and reading speeds usually in words per minute. Popular novel word count the worlds largest word count. Could you, as a firsttime novelist, get an agent or publisher to bite at your 200kword ya epic. Rowlings recordbreaking series began with two titles on the high end of that spectrum and finished with five that left the guidelines in the dust. Or when one states, in my 20,000word ya novel, a 14yearold holds her first sleepover and learns the meaning of true friendship. And, in case youre wondering, here are the average word counts for other popular genres. My point is that your genre will likely dictate your word count. Average the count by taking the total number of words counted and divide by three. For young adult fiction, the word count is once again lower, with the ideal. The word count range for young adult is 55,000 to 90,000.

Depending on the specific genre and demographic, ya books can vary in lengthbut they. Length for print books mattered a lot, but what about ebooks. Middlegrade novels can range from 10,000 to 30,000 words, and young adult novels can range from 25,000 to 50,000. In this very popular category you will find a wealth of romantic novels and novelettes in a wide range of fiction genres from contemporary, chicklit and historical romance to. A word count that is much higher than the average range tells the agent or editor your work probably needs to be tightened. Word count for novels and childrens books at the guide to literary agents blog. The longest is the order of the phoenix with a word count of 257,000 words. Nowadays, adult novels generally tend to range from 80k to 120k depending on genre, however, young adult is often closer to the range of a nanowrimo winner, with 6070k being desirable. If youre like me, you obsess over the word count of your novel. Feb 12, 2018 below youll find 100 mustread short ya books. They are the inbetweenbooks for readers who have outgrown chapter books like the magic tree house series, or popular books like the big nate series, and are too young to emotionally handle or enjoy themes and ideas found in young adult books.

List of popular ya novels word counts authorial intent. Writing for young adults a look at the numbers hannah holt. And i believe pams book is good enough to one day be in that category. When converting character counts to words, a measure of 5 or 6 characters to a word is generally used for english. I use amazons data feeds to come up with the calculation. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. Books for children and young adults has led to the publication of such popular titles. How many words should there be per chapter in the average ya. If youre going to go over that, youd better have a really good reason for it. Word count for young adult books the word count range for young adult is 55,000 to 90,000. Count the pages in each chapter and divide by 250 to get an. Oct 18, 2017 that said, genre word counts do tend to fall within a certain range. The graphic looks at the length of some famous novels, poems, and plays from literary history.

Romance books belong to one of the most popular fiction genres, currently accounting for over 50% of all printed and online englishlanguage books sold worldwide. Search for word count totals in books word counters. There is a range of formats, as well as fiction and nonfiction titles included. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. On average, young adult novels usually fall around 55,000 and 70,000 words.

This category has an expected word count of around 50,00080,000however there is a little flexibility here, due to the subgenres found in ya. A 90,000 word count signals to professionals that you know what you are doing. That said, this figure differs from book to book and organization to. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. These titles range from classic ya titles to more current books. Word count is commonly used by translators to determine the price of a translation job. Apr 07, 2012 the editors blog is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to. Most young adult novels fall between 55,000 and 70,000 words.

To find out how long should a chapter be, we examined books from a wide variety of genres and eras. A reasonable word count for a nonfiction book would be between 30,000 to 50,000 words. You have just discovered the wonderful world of bibliographic metadata. Jun 27, 2019 put simply, the sweet spot for a novels word count is generally said to be around 8090k. Although we covered this to some degree in our publishing.

But for mainstream ya it is always best to stick to under 80k. Some authors believe the word count is irrelevantwhether it takes 20,000 words or 200,000 words. With that in mind, ive tried to put together the definitive post on word count for fiction novels, young adult, middle grade, childrens books and. Some authors believe the word count is irrelevant whether it takes 20,000 words or 200,000 words. Writing towards a word count might not work for everybody, but having a rough goal in mind certainly helps me when im sketching out chapters and undertaking my first draft.

Some of these books are perfect onesitting reads, while others might demand more than one sitting to enjoy the complexity in their brevity. Thats approximately 300 pages of doublespaced type. Like a general fiction novel, a good target word count for a memoir is 80,000 words. From picture books to ya information to get you started at. Ya writers write for a specific audience without talking down. Literary agent danielle zigner takes a look at typical novel lengths and what appeals. The key differences between middle grade vs young adult.

Which is totally understandable, since length can be an important factor that agents and publishers look at when they receive your query letter. Several factors go into the price of an ebook, such as author popularity, series number, and demand for the. Aug 05, 2019 at the end of this article, youre going to find a guide to suggested word count length for most every popular genre. Jul 18, 2014 if you liked electric literatures game of books infographic that compared the length of a song of ice and fire to classic novels, you might enjoy this infographic created for cartridge discount. Here are some word counts of famous novels, sorted from long to short.

With books like twilight at 118,975 words and divergent at 105,143 words, this genre has been. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Novel revision checklist nathan bransford writing, book. It should be enough to communicate your message effectively. Dec 01, 2016 the sun is also a star, by nicola yoon read an excerpt. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. Aug 07, 2014 like when a query says, ive written a 100,000word mg novel about a seventhgrader who falls in love and has sex for the first time. Also, heres another list i may swipe and add in here. This is due in large part to the variety of subgenres within it and the trend for a book series with an ever greater word count. Discover the average number of words on a page by counting the number of words on three randomly picked full pages distributed throughout the book. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. Your readers will stick around for the first few sentences, but if theyre not hooked theyll close the book.