Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

October 2, 2006

Bookcraft 2.0: How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book?

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 1:16 pm

An Average Book . . .

books

As an introduction to Bookcraft 2.0, I wrote Write a Book? Assemble the One in Your Archives! In the comments, Chris showed serious interest in finding out more about it.

. . . My new venture, SuccessCREEations has been up and running for less than a month and already has 23,000+ words, all fairly focused topically. So perhaps in a few months I’ll have enough there to put something together (provided I keep the pace steady).

Of course it begs the question, how much material does it take to become publish-worthy? If you figure an average of about 250 words per page, then what about 60,000 words or so for an average book? Is that anywhere near right?

My apologies. Chris, for trying to answer a BIG question with a small answer. I should have said, “Yes, Chris. you’re more than near right . . . because you write well, you might even have two books there.”

Let me try to explain it better in this post.

How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book?

Editors and agents often quote a word count to writers in order to establish basic parameters. “Casting off” pages also once was a common practice in which the word count was used to determine how much paper a book would require.

Now, I think, giving out a word count is a good faith benchmark. Editors and agents want to save writers and themselves unnecessary time and work. Why should everyone be iinvesting in a manuscript that doesn’t have the critical mass it needs to make a full-size book?

Still the practice of quoting word counts bothers me, because critical mass doesn’t mean that the words in question actually say anything that a reader might be interested in. And the truth is the word count really is an average of a very wide range of possibilities..

Here are the word counts for 10 books you might know.

    1. Malcolm Gladwell’s Book, Blink is a 70,731-word message.
    2. Steve Farber’s Radical Leap tells the story in 33,825 words.
    3. Seth Godin uses 30,655 words to describe a Purple Cow.
    4. Stephen Covey needed 100,519 words to explain The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
    5. It took David Allen 76,858 words to write his way of Getting Things Done.
    6. Race Through the Forest, a fable, by Timothy Johnson needed only 18,508 words.
    7. Writing White Papers by Michael A. Stelzner required only 38,664 words to do what was necessary.
    8. Beyond Code by Rajesh Setty is about 30,000 words.
    9. Robert Scobel and Shel Israel spent 78,994 words in Naked Conversations.
    10.Queen Klutz by Marti Lawrence recount her humorous stories in 26, 485 words.

As you can see, the word counts vary wildly. But 60,000 is probably as good of a benchmark as any. My hope is you don’t hold it too tightly. . . .

I once asked, “How many words do you need to make a book?”
And a wise man told me, “As many as you need and not one more.”

Pages are a completely different matter. Paper is tangible.

We’ll get to pages as we start making Phil’s book.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find or make a book from your archives, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related articles
Bookcraft 2.0: Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would
Bookcraft 2.0 Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content
Bookcraft 2.0 Why Read the Date Archives Not the Categories?





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66 Comments to “Bookcraft 2.0: How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book?”

  1. October 2nd, 2006 at 1:50 pm
    Michael A. Stelzner said

    Hi Liz;

    I learned that it is the content of the words rather than the quality that make a difference. My book is by no means large in words. AND, I used a lot of pre-written articles I had created before the blog craze as foundation for the book.

    Mike

  2. October 2nd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Michael,
    I’m betting you mean “content rather than QUANTITY,” . . . I find your quality is outstanding!

  3. October 2nd, 2006 at 2:02 pm
    Michael A. Stelzner said

    Liz - Opps :( Yes, you read my mind. - Mike

  4. October 2nd, 2006 at 2:06 pm
    ME Strauss said

    cool :)

  5. October 2nd, 2006 at 2:30 pm
    Chris Cree said

    So the bottom line is authors write books for people not machines. No formula’s here, eh? Sigh… It figures. No matter how high tech we get there are still people in the equation somewhere. ;)

  6. October 2nd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Yeah, but Chris, you write so well, Like I said you probably have two books there. I think you can count on your intuitiion in this case. You’ve made great calls on that blog– everywhere I look.

  7. October 2nd, 2006 at 3:37 pm
    Chris Cree said

    Ok, so let me ask another pot-stirring question…

    How “original” does your content need to be to be “yours”?

    It is not at all that I plagiarize other people’s stuff. I understand what plagiarism is and I wouldn’t dream of stealing someone else’s work.

    But the reality is my thoughts are heavily influenced by other people’s ideas that I’ve encountered over the years. Really what I do over there is bring together ideas and concepts that other, bigger minds, have had before me and try to present them in a way that makes sense to me (and I hope, by extension, to others as well.)

    But then I wouldn’t want to pretend that the ideas I’ve put down are wholly my own. I’m just plain not that smart.

  8. October 2nd, 2006 at 3:43 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Chris,
    Your questions are great ones.
    First know this. You can’t own or steal an idea. West Side Story IS Romeo and Juliet. That’s not plagarism.

    I think you’ve defined what you do well. You read other’s work internalize it and mix it with your own thoughts. You’ve been “influenced.” It’s nice to give credit when you feel someone has heavily influenced the direction of your thoughts and it also gives credibility to what you’re saying. But if the words are your own, really your own — not paraphrased. The content is original.

    Hope that helps

  9. October 2nd, 2006 at 5:18 pm
    Chris Cree said

    As always your explanation brings it down to the lower shelf to make it easier for some of us to understand.

    I guess I’ve been thinking of ideas in terms of patentable items rather than in terms of transcendental principles. Thanks for clearing that up!

  10. October 2nd, 2006 at 5:41 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Chris,
    Sorry, if I sounded transcendental. Didn’t mean to overexplain things there . . .

    You’re free and clear with any copyright issues as far as I see. Everything sounds quite original to me.

  11. October 2nd, 2006 at 6:27 pm
    Bryan Potts said

    I am planning on making a book out of all my blogs from age 15 to 55 when I get there :). I’m going to be a celebrity soon - because i’m going to lose 150 pounds and document the whole thing on my blog. Pictures every day. The idea is that my blog will keep me accountable to 300,000,000 people. Think it will work??

  12. October 2nd, 2006 at 7:21 pm
    Scorpia said

    If absolute originality were required for any book, the shelves at Barnes & Noble would be rather empty.

    If you have something good to say, just go ahead and say (or write) it. Give credit where it is due. And that’s all you need to worry about (besides dealing with publishers, editors, and God knows whom ;).

  13. October 2nd, 2006 at 7:50 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Bryan,
    Welcome,
    I don’t if it will work. But it’s a noble goal worth going for! I say why not? Good on ya!

  14. October 2nd, 2006 at 7:52 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Scorpia!
    You’ve got a great point there. I read somewhere once that there are only 20 fiction plots altogether. I know that I’ve read the same thoughts in so many business books. Sometimes you have read the same ideas for them to sink in so, it’s not really such a bad thing . . . I suppose it’s the same in computer games too?

  15. October 2nd, 2006 at 7:53 pm
    Steve said

    Hey that’s great! I wouldn’t want to be a celebrity though. Not my cup of Joe…. :)

    I’ll take the fortune over the fame any day..
    Steve

  16. October 2nd, 2006 at 7:54 pm
    Steve said

    It is also the same in movies. If I liked it once I will more than likely like it again! :D

  17. October 2nd, 2006 at 7:55 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Steve,
    I’m with you. Fame is only attractive from far away, but fortune will buy you a cup of Joe. :)

  18. October 2nd, 2006 at 9:58 pm
    Whimspiration said

    My mother’s high school english teacher told her that a good story needs to be like a lady’s skirt. “Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep it interesting.”

    I’ve used that model in everything I’ve ever written, and every story I’ve ever told. It has never failed me. *smile*

  19. October 2nd, 2006 at 10:01 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Whims!
    What a fabulous description! I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one. Thanks for sharing it. It’s perfect. I won’t be forgetting it. :)

  20. October 3rd, 2006 at 9:41 am
    Scorpia said

    Yeah, that is a cute description. I like it (wish I’d thought of it ;).

    Liz, plots in computer games are depressingly the same, at least so far as the role-playing ones are concerned. “Kill critters, grab goodies, frag Foozle” (”Foozle” is my generic term for whomever or whatever is behind all the trouble).

    But speaking of length, I have never managed word count. When I first started writing for CGW, and they told me the articles for my column should be about so many words, I had to ask, “how much is that in K?”. I couldn’t think in terms of word count, only file size. That’s still true today.

  21. October 3rd, 2006 at 9:46 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Scorpia,
    I can understand why you can’t think in wordcount. I have trouble thinking in bandwidth . . . when it comes to how much my blog uses. :)

  22. October 3rd, 2006 at 12:22 pm
    ann michael said

    Scorpia that’s too funny! If it weren’t for the word function to count words - I would never be able to think in those terms either!!!

    BTW - Liz, I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell’s work a whole lot - but Blink probably could have been done in 1/2 the length. I found it really repetitive. So , I tend to agree with Michael (way up there at the top of the comments - with of course, your subsequent clarification)!

  23. October 3rd, 2006 at 12:32 pm
    ME Strauss said

    I agree with you about Blink. I had some trouble finishing it. Some of his examples went on and on. I think he’s a guy who took his word count WAY too seriously.

  24. October 3rd, 2006 at 12:49 pm
    Big Roy said

    “Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep it interesting.”

    Great description, it’s something we all deal with everyday when we write. I struggle with every post I make trying to include just the right amount of information.

  25. October 3rd, 2006 at 2:36 pm
    Chris @ Martial Development said

    To quote Brian Clark (who may have quoted someone else)…

    A post (or book) can never be too long. It can only be too boring.

  26. October 3rd, 2006 at 2:38 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Big Roy!
    I think I agree . . . getting to “just right” is an artform.

  27. October 3rd, 2006 at 2:40 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Chris,
    I’ll have to think on that. I think I agree with what Brian’s saying there, but it sure seems to have a lawyerly twist to it.

    I prefer the old standby, “I wrote you a long letter because I didn’t have time to write you a short one.”

  28. October 4th, 2006 at 12:01 am
    shel israel said

    Thanks for your mention of Naked Conversations. Interestingly, we had planned a much longer book. The publisher asked us to cut it down to 80,000 words, the amount they estimated that the average business person could read on a nonstop flight from New York City to Los Angeles. In retrospect, the book would have been horribly overwritten if we had droned on for another 20,000-40,000 words as Robert Scoble and I had planned.

  29. October 4th, 2006 at 6:30 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Shel,
    Thank you for sharing that bit of information. It helps us all get perspective. What great measure for a business book!

    I read Naked Conversations in the comfort of my own home. To me it was the right lenghth and one chapter longer would have been too long. I was approaching information saturation level. Now I’m ready for a new one though, Shel.

  30. October 4th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
    ann michael said

    Liz - I just saw this on Seth Godin’s blog and it reminded me of Scorpia’s comment on thinking in “K” not word count:

    http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/10/andy_warhol_out.html

    Pretty funny!

  31. October 4th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
    ME Strauss said

    I just went over and read it. Too funny! I guess Seth and Scorpia would have had to give Andy Warhol a talking to today. :)

  32. October 4th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
    Scorpia said

    Ann, heh. I don’t use (and didn’t back then) a fancy word processor. Notepad, or sometimes Wordpad, is (are?) it. So I really do need to know how much that word count is in K ;)

  33. October 4th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Wouldn’t we first have to figure out how many words Andy Warhol could say in 15 minutes? :)

  34. October 4th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
    Marti said

    Thank you for including me in such esteemed company!

    20 fiction plots, huh? That made me laugh…my husband and I have told our children there are only nine stories - LOL! When we “force” them to watch classic movies (which, the older they get, the more they appreciate) they’ll say, “Story number 7″ (or appropriate number). It’s all in the telling.

    Thank you for a terrific post!

  35. October 4th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Marti.
    You’ve got their number — from every direction. I think it was a Writer’s Digest Book that named 20. Let’s see boy meets girl . . . :)

  36. October 4th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
    Marti said

    …boy loses girl….

    LOL

  37. October 4th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
    ME Strauss said

    boy takes up with moose instead. :)

  38. October 4th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
    Marti said

    ROTF

  39. October 4th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Plot #2 Woman struck down in fit of laughter . . .

  40. October 4th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
    Marti said

    We have to giggle, we never sleep lol

  41. October 4th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Plot #3 Women who don’t sleep accused of being witches. . ..

  42. October 4th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
    Marti said

    “Is that a box of matches in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

  43. October 4th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
    ME Strauss said

    One witch starts hearing voices, races into battle against the wimpy king. An army follows the church gets mad. The matches come in handy when they burn her at the stake. They call her Joan or Arc. Plot #3.5 — She doesn’t really count, because she’s not fiction, except the voices, we don’t know about them, now do we??????

  44. October 4th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
    Marti said

    {glances around nervously, places index finger across lips, then whispers, “That’s our little secret”}

  45. October 4th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
    ME Strauss said

    It’s okay, I heard ‘em too. :)

  46. October 4th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
    Marti said

    ‘night, sugar…4 AM comes far too soon…
    :)

  47. October 4th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Woman Sleeps plot 5

    Sweet dreams.

  48. October 6th, 2006 at 9:52 am
    Successful Blog - Bookcraft 2.0: Why No Bound Book Has 666 Pages and Get Your Free Blank Bookmap said

    [...] Related articles Bookcraft 2.0: Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would Bookcraft 2.0 Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content Bookcraft 2.0 Why Read the Date Archives Not the Categories? Bookcraft 2.0: How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book? [...]

  49. June 20th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
    Bookcraft 2.0: 7 Reasons eBooks Are Losing Readers - Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Thinking, writing, business ideas . . . You’re only a stranger once. said

    [...] articles Bookcraft 2.0: 12 Cold Truths about Publishing and The 2 Proofs Every Publisher Wants Bookcraft 2.0: How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book? Bookcraft 2.0: Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would Bookcraft 2.0: Why No Bound [...]

  50. July 1st, 2007 at 7:59 pm
    katiesullivan.com » Blog Archive » Something’s Wrong said

    [...] to let it go for a day. I’m 73% done, using a goal of 70,731 words. I got that number from here. I assume most people write until the story is told by the story I’m trying to tell could go on [...]

  51. February 29th, 2008 at 6:07 am
    Designing The News » Newspapers, books, and rather large word counts said

    [...] what I’ve found out, the average book length is about 80,000 words, at 250 words to a page, that’s about 320 [...]

  52. August 19th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
    Alex said

    Wow.. With the way “Liz” writes replies we may be looking at a half-million word count.

    If you feel that your book should end, end it. Even if it is 300 words long. If you’re trying to stretch out your work to the target goal, the part being stretched is going to suck. Common sense no?

  53. August 19th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Exactly, Alex.
    Only use as many words as it takes to say what you need to say and not one word more. :)

  54. November 1st, 2008 at 9:59 pm
    BuddingWriter said

    Boy.. I think I may have to compress my book by a lot… I feel like I am close to halfway through the story and my count is now at 96,691.
    No it is not a fantasy, no it does not stretch across decades… It is a women’s fiction, I guess you could call it romantic suspense, there are two main plot lines, boy meets girl; and a crime plot.

    What is the point where you no longer are publishable because the story is too long?

  55. November 2nd, 2008 at 8:32 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Budding Writer,
    If you read a lot books that are similar to the one you want to write or are writing, you’ll find that there’s a pattern to them. The plot only gets to a certain level of complex. Study the books for their structure. Map their stories as you them for structure and action. Count the characters in them.

    Notice the page count, look on Amazon for the word count. You’ll find the answer to your question. You’ll also have information you need to “sell” your proposal when the book is done — because you’ll see how your book fits within the market.

  56. April 21st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
    maddie said

    i’m writing a book and i’m like omg what if my book’s only 40 pages long but i read 130,000 words is 500 pages in a book. i have 12,400 words already tyed up so far i have lot’s more to type up and i have to finish hand writing it first.

  57. July 13th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
    Chris said

    thanks for the info here. I’m trying to figure out how long a book about blogging should be. I want to write something about how to start a blog and all the things that come with it, ie. choosing a domain and how to find a focus, and going into how to make money with one.

  58. July 20th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
    Shaun Fitzgerald said

    Hi,let me first say I am very confused and lost. I am a young writer and have just finished what I hope to be the begining of my first series of books. However I went over my first (hopeful) ‘book’ which I wrote in microsoft word. It’s 43 pages, 26,322 words (not fully finished yet) but I do not think this is enough to be published. I have started the second book already and I can tell that it will triple in size compared to the first book. What should I do? I have no real help from anyone I know as they themselves are as lost and I on the subject.

  59. July 21st, 2009 at 10:13 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Shaun,
    Read books that are like the book you are writing. Look at the length of the chapters and the length of the book. Mimic what you see. Those are templates that work and that sell.

  60. July 27th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
    Shaun Fitzgerald said

    Thanks Liz, I tried, I have a slightly better idea now. I was wondering, does the fact that of my sequal being significantly longer seem too odd?

  61. August 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
    Wraith said

    just wrote a book with 26,314 words. It is short, but hearing about Queen Klutz makes me feel better about the number of words and chapters in my story, not that I couldn’t expand it. It is 15 chapters to though, fairly short.

  62. August 16th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Wraith,
    In today’s world, short isn’t the problem, boring is. :)

  63. October 17th, 2009 at 11:00 am
    Jamie's Author said

    I just started writing a book (my first book) and have no idea where it fits in the market. I think it will be fiction because its a story but I meant it to be kind of half and half. A story of someone’s life, a negative life, and how religion, science, and phschology would compare notes to the account of this girl’s “obstacles”. I have never read books like this, I’ve read mystery and fantasy books and BLINK.

    Am I writing a failed plot? Or is there a space in the market for this book I am just not aware of? There is a beginning story (history of the main character) the middle (events, the whole point of the book you could say) and the ending/last piece would be the discection of the three points of view on the events that have occurred from beginning to end.
    So it would be left kind of open-ended at closing.

    Is this non-sense? For some reason as I’m going along I’m starting to think of this book as the one your english teacher forces you to read and you don’t understand the importance (like I felt about The Old Man and The Sea haha). I guess what I mean is I’m starting to doubt someone will find it interesting. At least not until the last half..

    Sorry, main question: where do you think this book fits in the market or is it most likely garbage unless I can come up with a more conventional story? Would it be more wise to push it all the way into fiction and hope people ponder the possiblilties? I seem to be stuck on pointing out the relationships between what we see and how all 3 sources could all “diagnose” the problem “accurately” according to their beliefs.
    Ag! sorry I’m so long winded. Thankyou for any response!
    Would you say I’m

  64. October 17th, 2009 at 11:09 am
    Jamie's Author said

    PS - If I told it like a whole story would it be fiction if I’m writing about someone’s life in story form but not advertising it that way for privacy? *sigh* My main main problem without all the wind is what I started out with. Where in the world does it go on a shelf?? (suddenly I wish I could sit down with my senior english teacher, but I’m in another state now and don’t know which teachers give a crap and who’s there for the check, you know?)
    Once again thanks for putting up with my long comments.

  65. October 31st, 2009 at 10:06 pm
    Graham said

    Hi, can you tell me or do you know where I can find the word count to other books like Tipping Point, Blue Ocean Strategy, Freakonomics, Outliers etc?
    thanks! Graham

  66. November 2nd, 2009 at 5:24 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    HI Graham,
    Sure. You can find plenty of useful information, such as word count, on individual titles in the Amazon.com entry for the book.

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