How long is a book?
Novel, novella, poetry anthology, memoir ... all the word counts you need to know
Hello writers,
Lovely to have you here!
For those of you who are new, a quick re-introduction: I’m Jen Thorpe. I’m a writer, a feminist, a mother, a yogi, a swimmer, a nature lover, a lapsed vegetarian, a chocolate addict, a postpartum doula, an extroverted-introvert, and a reader. I love words. I love what writing and reading can do for a person. You can find out about my books here.
This Substack is a place for me to share information about my writing workshops, as well as interesting writing tips and tricks (see the notes section too).
Today I wanted to answer a question I got in my first writing workshop, and that was ‘how long is a book?’
Sometimes people ask that question, because the real question is ‘how do I know when I’m done?’ That question is much deeper and one I probably can’t answer for you (or at least not without a glass of wine and some time). But, what I can tell you is the average word length for most types of story.
Flash
A flash is anything under 1,000 words but most publishers specify an actual word count for flash stories. Under 100 words is a microfiction. A fantastic place for flash is
- highly recommend you take a look.Short story
A short story is generally between 1,500 and 7,000 words, depending on the publisher. a short story collection is generally somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 though this might depend on the publisher.
Novellas
The average novella is between 17,500 and 40,000 words.
Novels
Typical range for a debut novel is 70,000 - 100,000 words. A sweet spot is probably around 90,000 words. Important fact: In South Africa, most local novels that are sold are in Afrikaans. English sales are pretty depressing.
Poetry collections
This is a tricky one because the internet does not agree. But the range is something like:
Chapbook: 20 - 40 pages
Full length collection: 50 - 100 pages.
When I chatted to
about poetry collection length, she suggested a sweet spot somewhere between 60 and 70 pages.The pages do matter, because of the publishing process, but what matters more is the quality of your poems. Here’s some lovely advice from Ada Limon on how to put together a poetry collection.
Young adult (YA) novels
YA novels are similar to novels in that the average length is around 60,000 - 90,000 words. Fantasy YA can be a bit longer, so more like 75,000 - 100,000. Here’s a nice article about how to write a YA novel. These books are aimed at readers 13+ years old.
Middle-grade fiction
A middle-grade fiction book is aimed at readers who are between 8 and 12 years old. So, as you can imagine with that massive time of development there is also quite a big word length variation in these titles. The average middle-grade fiction books are between 22,000 and 55,000 words. This page has some links for those interested in exploring this.
Children’s books
Children’s books cover children from ages 0 - 7 years and there is a huge range here. From completely wordless books (here’s a fantastic selection from Book Dash) to books for early readers aged 7 - 9. Here’s a helpful guideline:
Board books (aimed at readers 0 - 3): 0 - 100 words.
Picture books for toddlers (ages 2 - 5): 100 - 500 words.
Picture books for older children (ages 4 - 8): 500 - 1,000 words.
Early readers / chapter books (ages 7 - 9): 6,000 - 8,000 words.
Non-fiction books
This depends on the topic and publisher, but you’re aiming at somewhere between 45,000 and 80,000 words. Self-help books are normally on the lower end of that scale, and business, politics, or science books are normally at the upper end. Memoirs are often between 60,000 to 100,000 words.
Hope this was helpful to all of you aspiring writers out there!