How to format your book for self publication bookstand. They are reliant on both text and illustration and text length can range from 100 words, sometimes more. The figure was found through looking at a number of books text stats, until brave new worlds 64,531 word count landed in the exact center of all books50% of books have fewer words and 50% of books have more words. As you can see in the image below, there are a number of builtin styles in use in my example document. With a few customizations, it can make writing your book easy. If you want to write a book, you need word processing software thats up to the task.
Go to format page numbers option in the second section. Click page number and then select bottom of page and plain number 2. Indent paragraphs except for the opening paragraph of a chapter or section. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. Revert back to normal template in word 2010 i downloaded a template in order to format a paper for publication. How many characters of text letters are in an average book. Every section you include in your manuscript foreword, dedication, chapters, etc. The editor also provides four popular trim sizes for formatting 4. Historically, these terms referred to the format of the book, a technical term.
Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Microsoft word paper is equivalent to how many of an average novel pages. Once you have a vision for your booksmall, standard, or wide formatyou can move on to the second step in deciding how many words you should write. The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. The original question had a followup statement, which was as follows. If you want to experiment with book sizes and the way they might impact your typesetting choices, the reedsy book editor allows you to do so for free. At one extreme you get large print books with 250 words on the page. Revert back to normal template in word 2010 microsoft. Having some reallife examples at your side, you should get a better sense of. Here are the basics steps on formatting your manuscript in microsoft word for self publication. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from folio the largest, to quarto smaller and octavo still smaller. On the layout tab, in the page setup group, click size, and then select more paper sizes. The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Choose one of the above sizes, even for your large format book, just as a starting point.
Enter your books trim size into the width and height fields. Youll be able to choose the different inner and outer margin you need for your project. This estimate will vary depending on the typeface, point size, and. Youre better off going with the answers given by shawn and marion i guess. I believe they know what theyre talking about and i clearly didnt. The directions below are for ms word 7 and 10 the most. Depending on your version of microsoft word, this may be a popup or a sidebar. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. It seems like ya novels are getting longer and longer nowadays, but maybe my attention span is getting shorter. How to format your page leftalign your type and keep the right side ragged. Select the normal indoarabic format in number format dropdown. With your page size set, the next setting you need to do is the page layout. The book fold layout sets you up for printing your masterpiece automatically in the correct order, ready for folding and binding.
In microsoft word, open a new document and click on page setup under page layout. So, you have to set the page size in word for the target book format you want to. These questions made us fill the need of a book page count calculator we put at the bottom of this page. Here in the number format dropdown, select the roman numeral format. To see the current page size of the document in which you are writing your book, and to alter it to suit one of. You can also use the styles gallery to make a quick style change. Also in the page numbering option, select start at. For paperbacks you get 2550 lines per page, with 35 being a good average.
Therefore, a 280,000 word manuscript becomes a 900 page doorstop. Using amazons number of words as a guide, 5,000 words would equal 26. These steps include including setting up the correct trim size, setting up the correct margins, formatting the text, and numbering the pages. Thus, in a 32 page book, you would have a single page the right hand side of the book, fifteen doublepage spreads, and a single page the left hand side of the book. Trim sizes in this post were updated on january 30, 2015 as soon as you get serious about selfpublishing a book, you are confronted with the choice of what size your book ought to be for instance, if you want to get a price on how much a book will. Interior book design manuscript formatting professionally formatted text is an important part of book design.
Professional book designers will object that books traditionally have a. I use microsoft word and a print page is different then a book page. Begin new chapters on new pages about onethird of the page down from the top. Youll select the option available for mirrored margins, then click custom margins to change the actual dimensions.
Click the page layout tab on the menu bar, then click and open the size option. The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of pages. This resizes your pages and changes your page count, which you need to know for setting your margins. Naturally, the quality of the content of your book is the number 1 priority. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. To fill a page in word, you would need around 500 words, 1. As you can see, a smaller trim size will produce more pages for the same word count, and a larger trim size will produce less. After we have chosen our blank document it is time to choose the page size. This will automatically create your left and righthand pages, with the correct margins, as you develop your book. If you are still floundering, you might like to consider the new free online course of how to format a word document for ebook. First, provide an estimated character count for a standard book.
Yes, its possible to break this model by having lots of staccato dialog, or paragraphs that are more than 250 words long, but those are extreme cases. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. There are plenty of sizes to choose from and it is. Most ebooks i see are double spaced, which makes their pages clearer but also reduces the number of words per page. Build your book format a paperback manuscript word for. Microsoft word is universally recognized, and youre probably already familiar with it. Before diving into the specifics of genrebased word counts, lets look at the broader picture of average book length. On the dropdown menu, click more paper sizes at the bottom of the menu. Readability is an interesting topic, and there are a number of readability formulas that can be used to test the readability of text.
Typesetting and formatting your book completelynovel. I agree that it seems like for a debut author, the agent really looks at that word count. Standard book sizes, dimension, and specifications blurb. In the apply to list, select whole document and click ok. Basic book designmargins wikibooks, open books for an. Calculate book page count using the word count from your word document.
How to format your book for self publication bookstand publishing. Whether you want to create a booklet for an event or print out an ambitious book project, consider using the prebuilt page settings for booklets that comes with word. The page doublespaced on the right fills less than half the page. In the pages frame, choose mirror margins from the multiple pages drop down menu.
Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page. Standard book sizes, dimension, and specifications chart. Most editors wouldnt recommend going over 80,000, as it will inspire bad taste among readers. Sp 014 rev how do i format my word document for book printing for. These sizes are only guidelines to approximate sizing, and should not be used in order to design an actual book or magazine. And a 28,000 word manuscript is more like a booklet or novella of 90 pages. A 40,000 to 80,000 word memoir is around 150265 pages, a standard book length for the genre. However, this rule can be bent for the following reasons. The point is that the perpage count is an estimate that will average out over time, and its good enough for most purposes.
The total page count excluding appendices and index is 204 pages, thus about 93,000 words. Formatting a book in microsoft word book formatting made easy. Most larger format books use the same size text blocks as regular. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about. Provided by alli partner member the book reality experience, the course lasts just over an hour and will show you, stepbystep exactly how to implement the tips above.
Is one microsoft word sheet a full one sided page of a novel book. This should already be set as a default, but just confirm it to be sure. How to format your word document for book printing on mac or pc. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. Basic book designpage size wikibooks, open books for an. If youre creating collateral pieces like custom envelopes to go with your finished book, please refer to the. A clear hierarchy and readable typeface help create a layout that is inviting to your reader. This is an art rather than a science but here are a few tips. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words.
To get an idea of what your book will look like you need to match the number of words per page on your word processing page to the finished printed page. When i started to work on novels i wanted to keep an estimate of how many words and book pages. According to amazon s great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. But when you format your book, the layout of your content, structure and readability is just as important as the content itself. In the menu click file, then page setup, and just confirm its set for oneinch margin on the top, bottom left and right. Though the standard is 32 pages, they can technically come in page lengths that are any multiples of 8. But your word count might be a reason it is being rejected. The book sizes and dimensions listed on this page and throughout most of our site are rounded measurements. Of course, word count wont matter if a story doesnt hook the target audience. The industry standard for a manuscript page, however, is a firm 250 words. If youre not sure how to change the page size, or the margins in microsoft word, then you can take a look at the help here.
The answer will be the approximate page count of a printed book. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. Calculate the number of pages using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. It contains 38 lines per page, with an average of 12 words per line, thus 456 words per book page. Now all my word documents are converted to that template when i open them it includes a dotted line around the outside of the frame for each page that is driving me crazy. Another rule of thumb is you can get 250 to 300 words on a typeset page. It was created to answer all the questions you want to ask and more. 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.
The same rule applies for your page numbers if theyre in the footer. I pulled a book off my shelf and recreated it in indesign, but you might be able to do it in word. Book page count calculator how many pages is my novel. In the first section, go to format page numbers option.
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