It's Better That Way

Last year in this blog, I rambled on for 65,382 words. I began to wonder about how many words would typically be in a book. A simple question until you also start to consider what would constitute an “average” book length.

And what I found was this set of guidelines for average manuscript lengths:

	Average Number of Words	Approximate pages, Double Spaced
Short-short story	500-2500	2-10
Short story	2500-5000	10-20
Novelette	7000-25,000	28-100
Novel—paperback	35,000-80,000	140-320
Novel--hard cover	25,000-150,000	100-600
Humor feature	300-800	2-4
Oped	500-1000	2-5
Book review	400-1000	2-5
Newspaper feature	800-3000	4-12
Magazine article	2000-5000	8-20
Nonfiction book	20,000-200,000	80-800
Cookbook	10,000-200,000	40-800
Juvenile picture book	500-1500	(varies)
Juvenile book—mid	3000-25,000	12-100
Young adult book	15,000-80,000	60-320
Poem	2-100 lines (4-16 lines)	1-3
Play: one act	20-30 minutes	20-30 playing time
Play: three act	1 1/2 - 2 hours	90-120 playing time
TV script	1/2 hour	25-40
TV script	1 hour	55-70
Movie scenario	1 1/2 - 2 hours	120-250 playing time
Radio feature copy	15 ds lines =1 minutes 3 min = 2 pages

I guess if I’d had actually had anything to say, an important message, a cause I am passionate about or Google hack I had just written, I could’ve just written a “Novel – hard cover”. But my hallcinogenic duck dander and ferret legging stories, thrown in with the occasional hockey fight video, just don’t add up to a book.

And it’s probably better that way.