# Number of words in a typical novel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 28, 2006, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/number-of-words-in-a-typical-novel/366367 "2006-07-28T04:59:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/number-of-words-in-a-typical-novel/366367/1 "2006-07-28T04:59:08Z")
Simple question. I’m wondering how many words there are in a typical novel, or how many are in a typical printed page in a novel; references to large amounts of text often refer to the number of words contained therein but I don’t seem to have any real guess as to what those numbers correspond to in terms I can relate to. ---
**Author:** ![BethCro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cdc98d/32.png) [@BethCro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BethCro)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/number-of-words-in-a-typical-novel/366367/2 "2006-07-28T05:08:21Z")
[Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) has a section on many books, bestsellers mostly I believe, called Text Stats. For example, Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs comes out as: Number of Characters: 533,237 66% have fewer 34% have more Words: 89,949 69% have fewer 31% have more Sentences: 11,858 92% have fewer 8% have more Don’t know if that helps or not, as I’m not sure how many books they have the statistics on. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/number-of-words-in-a-typical-novel/366367/3 "2006-07-28T05:52:37Z")
[This page](http://www.thescriptorium.net/words.html) gives information about different ways of counting words and other statistics stuff. It claims a novel is anything over about 45000 words. I’d always heard 60-80K was typical for one, that a 40-50 would be a novella or “novella-length novel” (there’s some pickiness about what exactly a novella is). I doubt any definition is hard and fast. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/number-of-words-in-a-typical-novel/366367/4 "2006-07-28T06:04:14Z")
To qualify as a novel for National Novel Writing Month, it has to be 50,000 words or more. But they acknowledge that this is on the light side for publication. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/number-of-words-in-a-typical-novel/366367/5 "2006-07-28T12:41:35Z")
The cutoff point for a novel for [SFWA](http://www.sfwa.org) purposes is 40,000+ words. However, it’s rare that a novel that short is published these days. The minimum for a first novel is probably around 70K words, and some publishers prefer 90K. An established novelist can go longer or a bit shorter. (Incidently, in publishing, a “word” in this context is a precise measurement: 6 characters, including spaces.) YA novels are probably around 60K. Words per page is impossible to determine: there are different book sizes and different fonts and point sizes. You can determine it fairly simply for one book: count the number of characters per justified line, divide by six, multiply by the number of lines, multiply by the number of pages (adjusting for half pages).