How Long Should a Book Be?
The ideal length of a book is not what you think it is.
If you like writing but tend to be concise, you’re likely probably asking how much more content you need to add for your book to feel credible (throwback to those college papers, am I right?).
If you like writing and have lots to talk about, you’re likely asking how much you can fit into one book before your readers declare you hopelessly long-winded.
If you don’t like writing but find yourself writing a book anyway (perhaps for your company, personal legacy, or just because it’d be a shame to die with all your wisdom still inside you), you’re certainly asking how many more hours of typing it’ll take before you can relax again.
No matter how writing a book made it on your bucket list, the good news is that you’re almost certainly closer than you think.
How do I know that? Because the It’s-Your-Book Rule tells us so.
The It's-Your-Book Rule
This rule goes like this: “It’s your book, and you can make it as long or as short as you want it to be.”
And that’s the truth of it. If you’ve said all you have to say but your book is still only the size of an obese pamphlet, then leave it short! Or, if you just can’t bring yourself to cut anything from your multi-tome masterpiece, remember that Victor Hugo published Les Misérables in 1,462 pages of small font, and no one’s mad at him.
The only reason book police would come after you for your book being “too long” or “too short” is if your publishing company contractually requires a certain length. If you’re working with one, you should find that out (at HBC we have no such requirement because we believe that our authors’ books are their books, and thus honor the It’s-Your-Book Rule).
That said, readers do expect books to be within a certain length range. The range depends on the genre. An easy way to get a feel for how long your book should be is to go to a library and peruse the section that your book will (someday) be placed in.
We’ve saved you the trouble by analyzing books from the appropriate Amazon Best Seller lists. These lists represent some of the top-selling books in the world at the moment, so they’re good indicators of what readers are looking for.
Although most people think of books in terms of pages, a more useful measurement comes from word count. We can’t count every word in a published book, but we can get a good estimate based on the number of pages by multiplying that number by the average number of words on a page in a printed book (225 for non-fiction, 275 for fiction). Below is a list of a few genres with the respective average page count and estimated word count.
Average Length of a Self-Help Book
According to our analysis of the top results from this Amazon best seller list, the average book length in this category is 268 pages. That translates to roughly 60,400 words.
Average Length of a Business/Financial Book
When we turned our attention to the best sellers in this category, we found that the average book on business and money is 347 pages or 78,000 words.
Average Length of a Spiritual Book
For spiritual and religious books (our best sellers taken from this category), we found that the average book length is 226 pages. When we do the math, that’s about 50,700 words.
Average Length of a Romance Novel
In the romance category (this one), the average book length is 327 pages or 90,000 words.
Average Length of a Mystery, Thriller, or Suspense Novel
And for mystery, thriller, and suspense novels (this category), the average book length turned out to be 342 pages or 94,000 words.
How Long Should My Book Be?
As you can see, the average book length varies significantly from genre to genre. So where should you aim? The truth is that an extra thousand words or so won’t make or break your book—but the quality of the words you do have will. The best approach to writing a book is to get your word (or page) count within the generally accepted range of book lengths for your genre, and then make the content shine.
What are these ranges?
Non-fiction books tend to range from 30,000 to 90,000 words, with most landing somewhere around 60,000 words.
Fiction books tend to range from 50,000 to 130,000 words, with most being around 90,000 words.
As you go back to the grind of writing that masterpiece of yours, just remember that once you get within the generally accepted word count, the most important thing is not having the average number of pages with ink but having an above-average story to tell.
More than anything, write the book you want written—no matter how long it turns out. It’s your contribution to the world of literature, so don’t trip over yourself using someone else’s blueprint.
July 8, 2021
Founder, HBC
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