• Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
Book Cave: Authors and Publisher promotional services and features
Book Cave
Authors & Publishers
Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
  • Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
Technical Tips,Writing for Authors
03 Jul 2017 at 12:42 PM PDT
Updated 3 months ago

Ebook Word Count: Does Size Matter?

By Catia Shattuck

Advertisement

JutohWe at Book Cave prefer Jutoh for ebook creation because it gives us more control than most other ebook software out there, while still maintaining a friendly interface.

Browse by topic

All Posts Author Pages Author Website Cover Design Ebook Formatting Grammar & Punctuation Mailing Lists Promotion & Marketing Publishing Tips Social Media Technical Tips Tutorials Writing for Authors

ebook word count

I'm a book wyrm
We hope you enjoy reading this post!
If you’re like us and love to read, then click here to score tons of free and discounted ebooks.

Does ebook word count and page length matter? It mattered a lot in print books, where a book that was too short or too long would be rejected for printing and visual reasons. But ebooks don’t have printing costs, and you can’t tell at a glance how long they are. So does length still matter?

Well, kind of.

Length matters less for ebooks than it does for print books, but there are some acceptable lengths and norms that are still a concern.

Before we dive in, we first need to define the word “pages” which is very fluid in an ebook. We will be using Amazon’s estimation formula, which is that there are 300-350 words in a page (they do take into account images as well, if your ebook has those).

Ebook Word Count by Genre

The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. (Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count.)

The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. This is for full-length novels. However, many authors, frustrated with the low price of ebooks, have taken to writing ebooks that are between 40,000 and 50,000. Unfortunately for readers, the lower page count generally gives readers books without a lot of depth, side plots, or multi-faceted characterization.

Fiction novellas are usually 32,000 to 55,000 words, which is 100 to 170 ebook pages. Short stories are even shorter (of course), but are often 99 cents or free because readers will feel cheated otherwise—especially if they paid a novel-sized ebook price and didn’t realize it was just a few pages.

Check out the case study at the end of this post for some concrete examples!

Ebook Word Count and Price

Several factors go into the price of an ebook, such as author popularity, series number, and demand for the information (for nonfiction). Ebook word count should also be accounted for when setting the price of an ebook.

Full-length fiction novels can have a variety of price ranges, but we recommend not going higher than $9.99. Experiment with different prices, a month at a time, to see what gives you a better result. Many authors find their sweet spot is $3.99 – $4.99.

A novella will often receive negative reviews if the price is higher than $2.99. Keep in mind that readers often forget to check the length of an ebook before buying it and feel cheated when the book is shorter than they expected.

Nonfiction ebooks are often shorter than fiction, and yet are generally more expensive. This is because they require more research and fact-checking and can become valuable resources to readers. Check out books of similar genres before you price your book, but keep in mind that many top sellers have big publishing houses behind them, and if you are with a smaller publisher or are an indie author, you may need to use price as an incentive to sell your book, especially in the beginning.

Don’t Focus Too Much on Length

As we mentioned above, word count in ebooks isn’t nearly as important as it was in print books. As long as you write a complete story and don’t charge too much, most readers will be satisfied. Don’t fill your book with fluff to meet a page requirement, because requirements simply don’t exist for ebooks.

That being said, a very low word count may indicate that your book isn’t complete and needs more plot. You can ask your beta readers how they feel about the length of the book and whether or not the plot was fleshed out enough. Ask them if there was a scene they really wanted to see and didn’t, or if they felt connected with the characters. Most sophisticated readers expect layered plots with at least 70,000 words. Some books with heavy world-building may require over 100,000 words to satisfy readers.

Be Transparent for Shorter Works

A good technique to avoid negative reviews for shorter novels is to include your page count or state the size (novella or short story) in the book’s description. We recommend doing this for all YA and adult novels under 150 pages. Readers do usually read the description, so they will see your note there and won’t be surprised by length. (Note: Some authors mark books novellas if they aren’t at least 170 pages, and because many novels range around 300 pages—see our tables below—170 is still on the short side.)

For Books With a Print Version

If your book has a print version, Amazon will  use that page count for your ebook. So back matter and sample chapters will not be considered in your count (which is a good thing for readers). If you revise and extend your ebook and not the print version, you may need to email Amazon to fix your page count.

A Case Study of Amazon Books by Genre

We wanted to see the page count and pricing of actual books, so we pulled the data below from Amazon. We looked at 5 different genres, recording the pricing and length of 13 books in each genre.

You’ll see that each genre has two “pages” and “pricing” columns; this is because we sorted the search by “Average Customer Reviews” for one column and “Featured” for the other. These two sorts will show us the most successful books on Amazon. Each genre also includes average and medium pages and prices for the data.

Ebook Word Count

Ebook Word Count

From this chart, we can see that the romance genre is around 320 pages, the YA genre can vary greatly, science fiction and fantasy are generally on the longer side, and mysteries and thrillers are in about the same spot as romances. Self-help books, which are nonfiction, are shorter, as expected, and more expensive.

We hope this post has helped you determine a good ebook word count for your book. If you have any questions or comments, let us know below. 

If you’d like to learn more about Book Cave promotions and receive more writing tips, please enter your email below and click the “Learn More” button to receive our author newsletter.

Copyright 2017 by Book Cave
Reuse notice: Non-commercial users, feel free to print out “Ebook Word Count: Does Size Matter?” for personal use or give to friends, share online, or make a meme of, as long as you attribute and link back to this post. Commercial users, you may share a link to this post or quote a short excerpt from it with attribution and a link to this site, but you may not use this post in its entirety. Thank you for caring about copyright.

Share this authorpost

Keep Reading

social media strategies

Social Media Strategies to Build Your Reader Base

Trying to stay on top of social media can be overwhelming. Where should you start? Here are some simple social media strategies to help you grow your reader base.

Character naming pitfalls

Character Naming Pitfalls to Watch Out For

Characters names can help make your book memorable, but naming your characters can be a lot of work when you do it well. Here are some character naming pitfalls to watch out for.

big 5 publishers

What Are the Big 5 Publishers?

If you’re aiming to be published by one of the Big 5 publishers, or you just want to learn more about them, read on for more information and some manuscript-submission tips.

Hello fellow book lover! We hope you are enjoying this post.
If you want free, content-rated ebooks that you can download straight from your favorite retailer, just sign up for our free newsletter
Sign me up!

Leave a Reply

Cancel


Comments

  1. Jerry long
    Jerry long • 1 year ago

    I’m writing an ebook that’s approximately 400 600 pages long it has to deal with learning about life what to do what not to do and financial investing to get somewhere in life I was wondering what you thought of what I should charge for that I’m going to probably sell off Amazon

    Reply
  2. Wale B Plus
    Wale B Plus • 1 year ago

    Greetings. Thought I will have to trawl through a myriad hoops to find the info required, but is was quicker than I thought. What you see is what you get. Quality! Cheers.

    Reply
  3. Evelyn
    Evelyn • 2 years ago

    I noticed the prices above differ, like the one for Mystery and thriller 464 pages in features is $14.99 and 477 pages $12.99. It doesn’t really make sense.

    Reply
  4. Dumpor
    Dumpor • 2 years ago

    I knew when I bought this book that it was a novella and the entire story would be condensed, but I felt this was too condensed.

    Reply
  5. Kathleen Nicholson
    Kathleen Nicholson • 2 years ago

    I am writing an ebook on learning to play the piano in retirement, even if you have never played before. This is not a tutor book, but rather exploring whether it is possible to learn in later life, whether adverts which say ‘learn to play in 21 days’ are true, whether you need a teacher or not, health issues and benefits. There are other aspects to this book, and I am expecting it will be about 15,000 to 20,000 words when finished. How can I find out if there would be a market for such a book?

    Reply
  6. Corey gigoux
    Corey gigoux • 2 years ago

    hi i need to get some ideas on blog marketing a ebook i created also need to come up with a tittle and book cover design need assistance with that and also to expand on Amazon

    Reply
  7. Wayne Vinson
    Wayne Vinson • 2 years ago

    Very helpful!

    Reply
  8. Robert Day
    Robert Day • 2 years ago

    Good article! I read a lot (pretty much daily) and have noticed many Sci Fy novels in the 75K word count range. They feel too short!
    I published my first novel on Amazon this year (Mongruxx Wolfpac) and am 40K words into the next book (Mongruxx Starship Umbra). My first novel ran 120K words, the next one most likely 200K. The story takes what it takes to tell it well.
    Tell your story.
    Enjoy the creativity and living through the writing of your book.
    It’s not always easy, but I love it.
    Robert Day

    Reply
  9. anthony markatos
    anthony markatos • 2 years ago

    I am creating a book whose objective is to simplify a complex subject – General Systems Theory. No 350 pages of text. I think about 25 pages of text plus about a dozen supporting graphics will do the trick. Can I create such an eBook from a page count perspective

    Reply
  10. David
    David • 3 years ago

    Good article. Full of good advice. Thank you

    Reply
  11. Patrick
    Patrick • 3 years ago

    Very helpful. Thank you. After I finish my blog series on coping for depression I want to write my first ebook on the principles, and a workbook to complement and it. How many words do you think would be appropriate if core content is about 20,000 words?

    Reply
  12. Fran Hill
    Fran Hill • 3 years ago

    Thank you for the clear, straight to the point information.

    Reply
  13. Dan Sung
    Dan Sung • 3 years ago

    Does the word count apply if you’re planning to publish a book full of poems and short stories?

    Reply
    • Catia Shattuck
      Catia Shattuck Dan Sung • 3 years ago

      Short stories are generally shorter than 10,000 words, while poems can range from 3 words to novel-sized. For a collection of short stories and poems, you have a lot of flexibility. I would aim for novella size or bigger, since you’ve created a collection that should give readers more value than a single short story or poem. But again, there is no set standard for a collection of poems and short stories.

      Reply
  14. Akuh Bernard
    Akuh Bernard • 3 years ago

    This is great.
    Bernard

    Reply
  15. Patrice
    Patrice • 3 years ago

    Very helpful, thanks!

    Reply
  16. Val Serrano
    Val Serrano • 3 years ago

    Thanks for the breakdown. Great article.

    Reply
Receive free ebooks on Amazon Kindle from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Apple Books from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Google Play from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Kobo from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Nook from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Smashwords from Book Cave
Book Cave
Book Cave Direct
My Book Ratings
MY BOOK RATINGS
Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
  • Sitemap
  • Contact Us
  • Free ebooks
© Book Cave - All the rights reserved!