1. CrimsonWolf

    CrimsonWolf New Member

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    Book page size?

    Discussion in 'Revision and Editing' started by CrimsonWolf, Jun 17, 2008.

    I mostly type my writing in Microsoft Word, but have always wondered about how many pages would it be in a paperback novel form? I know it would depends on the size of the book, but i'm assuming there might be about one and a half or two book pages to every microsoft A4 word page. Does anyone know how that works?
     
  2. jim90

    jim90 New Member

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    Well in MWord I use A5 which neaely doubles the page amount and is closer to paperback but paperback would probably be a few more than that.
     
  3. Scribe Rewan

    Scribe Rewan New Member

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    I've counted quite a few pages of different books to work this out myself (cool, i know....), and they all varied from 300-500 words, but 300 was the average. So every 1000 words will be around 2 to 3 pages.

    Hope that helps!
     
  4. NaCl

    NaCl Contributor Contributor

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    Not true. Dialog usually takes far less word count to fill a page.

    The factors effecting page count are:

    Page size, margins, font type, font size, kerning and "widows & orphans" (which are ideally removed). Of particular importance is "white space" on a page. If a layout attempts to cram too much writing onto a page, the result can be negative for many readers. It's generally better to open the print with kerning, margins and font choice to keep the page more "friendly" for the reader...of course, these things producing white space cause more pages. A good editor and print layout person will experiment with your manuscript to find the optimal design.

    In my current novel (over 135,000 words), the printer suggested more white space and the page count went from 440 to 580, so we're now increasing the page size to get the book back down to the 440 range. Either way (580 with small pages or 440 with bigger pages) means more paper cost per book.

    I would suggest you don't worry about page count or layout. Just write a compelling story in the 80,000 to 120,000 word range and let the publisher work with the printer to set the print layout.

    .....NaCl
     
  5. Lucy E.

    Lucy E. Active Member

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    I agree with NaCl on the last bit, but because manuscript A4 pages should be size-12 Times New Roman/Courier font and double spaced, the pages in an actual book contain more words to a page. If you have your entire manuscript written in the recommended format, your page count actually decreases by about a third if your novel is printed in average book size.
     
  6. Scribe Rewan

    Scribe Rewan New Member

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    I was generalising, and as I said, that was what I found out from the books I've looekd at personally.
     

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