Word Count and Page Count

by Gabrielle on March 25, 2009

In standard submission format, what is the usual difference in length of a book in manuscript to printed copy? If I have a hundred pages in Microsoft Word, is it really going to be a hundred pages in print?

It’s impossible to say, without actually seeing your layout, what your actual printed-book page count is going to be. It depends on font, spacing, trim size, margins, where on the page your new chapters start, whether hyphenation is on or off, and other various and sundry related factors.

Don’t worry about your final page count. Don’t even worry about your final word count, yet. Not while you’re writing. Worry about telling the story you have to tell. Once you’ve told it from beginning to end, then look at your word count and evaluate from there.

While the industry defines a novel as 50,000 words and up, the industry standard for a novel is actually around 80,000. That, more than a set number of pages, should be your goal. 50-70,000 may be too short and hard to market; 100,000 may be too expensive for a publisher to want to print.

The industry standard assumes 250 words per page. You can look at your word count in Microsoft Word and divide that number by 250 to get a rough idea of your page count. Even then, it won’t be completely accurate—different word processors have different algorithms to determine word count—but it’ll give you as close a count as you need.

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