For those who like to keep track of their reading word count or those who want to encourage their kids to read more the harry potter books series is an. To view word count in pages on a mac, go to the toolbar and click view show word count. We are also going to look at how harry potter is comparable to other young adult novels in regards to word count. Harry potter and the philosophers stone 76,944 words. Test your knowledge on this literature quiz to see how you do and compare your score to others. Like everything in writing, you may write a work of genius that smashes all the rules. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. However, word count does not really measure progress.
Harry potter and the goblet of fire was published 8 july 2000, simultaneously by bloomsbury and scholastic. Wot, but it could have been 23 of the word count without any real drop in quality. His parents are dead and hes stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. The first book in each series below was the authors first. Lexile measure 880l british book awards 1997 childrens book of the year. Black gate articles harry potter and the tyranny of word.
Which means, yes, that harry potter is three times the length of the narniad. Im looking for some statistics on typical harry potter chapter word count. The cloak is first used in harry potter and the philosophers stone, chapter 12. Not counting the epilogue, the shortest chapter is book 3, chapter 20 the dementors kiss at 2,018 words. Today you will sample words from both pieces of literature to determine who used. Title pages uk edition harry potter and the philosophers stone 223 pages harry potter and the chamber of secrets 251 pages harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban 317 pages harry potter and the goblet of fire 636 pages harry potter and the. Not counting the epilogue, the shortest chapter is book 3. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. With that in mind, ive tried to put together the definitive post on word count for fiction novels, young adult, middle grade, childrens books and even memoir. In this article, were going to look at how many words are in the harry potter series. An awful lot happens in that book, but its only 76k. Of course, when youre writing the first draft of your story, you want to just get your words out on paper.
Of course, you could have the new harry potter but that wont do you much good if no one is interested in looking at it. Jun 23, 2016 word count is what nanowrimo is about and its the subject of lots of books promising to boost your daily word count. One of my biggest problems as a publisher is having authors deliver more than was agreed to. I know the amount of words of a few books by heart, so its easy to compare. Notebooks and letters, originally posted on in 2007 and 2008, is the last of my three novellength harry potter fanfiction stories. At an average reading rate of 125 words per minute, thats about 145 hours of reading. If you look around on the internet, it wont be hard to come up with some solid advice for how long your book should be depending on which genre and market you are writing for.
Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. Is there a difference in the length of the words used in a shakespeare play compared to a harry potter book. The eight harry potter books have an impressive combined word count of over 1 million words. Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words or characters are counted. Everything you need to know about novel word counts nathan. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page count leading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length.
I like to think the books matured and got longer as we aged with harry. The premise is that hermione kept a series of journals documenting her years at hogwarts, and sold these to a book publisher, who then forwarded them to jkr. Rachel aarons 2,000 to 10,000 is perhaps best of these, and does contain useful advice about building momentum. Jun 27, 2019 of course, hiring a professional editor does come with a price tag, and most freelancers calculate their costs based on the number of words. Oct 18, 2017 therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. How many words in a novel and word counts for other types. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone has an average of 4,560 words per chapter. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000word range. Therefore, the word count of a novel is crucial if you want your book to be fit for publication. If this thread still going can someone tell me how many words is reasonable for a chapter im writing my first fantasy novel and worried if i have too short or to long of a chapter right now my first chapter word count is at 1,436 and in counting. Today you will sample words from both pieces of literature to determine who used longer words. Jan 08, 2012 you dont count book length in number of pages, you count it in word count. Rowlings recordbreaking series began with two titles on the high end of that spectrum and finished with five that left the guidelines in the dust. For some perspective, harry potter and the sorcerers stone was around.
A nicely graphed distribution would be nice, but ill accept an answer that has something equivalent to the average, standard deviation, and quartiles. Here are the number of pages in the harry potter books listed. Harry potter fans have read more than 1 million words, what about you. Harry potter and the chamber of secrets 85,141 words. The hobbit has more unique words and a higher unique word density than both the silmarillion and each volume in the lord of the rings. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a. I encountered advice on the issue in this post on the magical words blog where youll find me entering the fray in the comments. Since print cost depends on page count, keeping that lower means you can either keep the price lower. The sorcerers stone 77,325 words the chamber of secrets 84,799 words the prisoner of azkaban 106,821 words the goblet of fire 190,858 words the order. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself. In defense of its length, however, she challenged anyone to find the obvious place to cut. Here is everything writers need to know about novel word counts.
When combined, the total harry potter word count is over a million words. As you can see, established authors get much more flexibility when it comes to the length of their book. Heres a look at wordcount over time by the individual book. I thought this progression of word counts for the rowling series was interesting. He was less concerned about the books length than about its authors name, since. Love, choice, the importance of rebellion, humility, friendship, death, power.
Progressive word count in harry potter series the writers beat. Anyone want to bet that scholastic contracted with collins for three 100k word count books. Harry potter and the order of the phoenix wikipedia. I tend to be a very unconventional author when it comes to chapter length and word count for the entire novel. Harry potte r and the order of the phoenix is the fi fth b ook i n the harry potter series. The longest chapter is book 5, chapter detention with dolores at 9,001 words. All this takes a long time to explain, but its more than worth it. Harry potter uses the invisibility cloak in all of the harry potter books. How many pages are each of the harry potter books answers. It would be useful, imho, if all books mentioned the word count. Can you pick the harry potter books by word count in order from fewest to most. Guess she decided that a lot of unnecessary deaths. Word count harry potter and the philosophers stone 76944 words harry.
When added all together, the harry potter books contain 1,084,170 words. Before the popularity of ereaders like the kindle that was. How many pages are there in all the harry potter books. But for print publishing, the physical cost of producing the book is an issue, and the market does generally know what it likes. Harry potter word count the sorcerers stone 77,741 the chamber of secrets 85,735 the prisoner of azkaban 108,888 the goblet of fire 191,836 the order of the phoenix 261,906 the half blood prince 173,106 the deathly hallows 200,302. You dont count book length in number of pages, you count it in word count.
If your spoon at breakfast weighed thity five pounds, you might have had less oatmeal. The most popular harry potter book according to sales. Apr 23, 2018 this post covers why word count matters for novels, the standard word count ranges for various genres, and the word counts of some famous novels. If readers were put off by the page length of harry potter and the goblet of fire, they were not likely to jump back on board when harry potter and the order of the phoenix was released. Harry potter and the order of the phoenix is the fifth book in the exciting harry potter series. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time. The median book length for the full series is represented by the dotted line.
The word count of a book is measured by the whole books word count, not individual chapters. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. Harry potter and the sorcerers stone is about 77,500 words total. Harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban 107,253 words. Word count of popular fantasy and science fiction series. Wpm, would take 5 hours and 20 minutes to read harry potter and the sorcerers stone by j. Harry potter and the order of the phoenix is the longest book in the series, yet it is the second shortest film at 2 hours and 18 minutes. Each book in the series has a different word count, ranging from 76,944 harry potter and the sorcerers stone to 257,045 harry potter and the order of the phoenix. What isnt often considered is the sheer number of words a person who reads the entire series consumes. List of chapters in the harry potter novels harry potter. Word counts of suzanne collins hunger games trilogy.
Word count for novels and books is something i dont think about too often until i travel to a writers conference, and then someone asks a simple, innocent question. While writing a hook for our first fulllength novel, echo chamber heist, i decided to look at. Statistics on harry potter chapter length science fiction. By far the longest, it has more emotional scenes, more epic battles and more characters who each have their own story to tell. Take a look at the word counts for each of the harry potter books. Progressive word count in harry potter series progressive word count in harry potter series. Depending on the variant that youre reading i believe that the page numbers differ between countries so im using the copies that i have to hand. I generally write horrorfantasy, as a result much more description is required to. This will help determine what kind of length readers expect in popular novels, and also will give me a word count goal for writing the scenes and assignments. How many words in a novel and word counts for other types of. Below youll find the total word count numbers for each book in the. Nov 25, 2008 progressive word count in harry potter series. Jul 12, 2007 here are the number of pages in the harry potter books listed. Aug 10, 2011 i know the amount of words of a few books by heart, so its easy to compare.
My longest fic is 121k, second longest 114k and the current one i project to be around 75k i planned on it being shorter plate got a bit fuller and didnt want to be plotting an epic on top of it lol. Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Progressive word count in harry potter series the writer. Whilst longer doesnt necessarily mean better, sometimes word count like the harry potter word count is important because theres just so much ground to cover. Words counts of bestselling novels better novel project. How many words per chapter are in a harry potter novel.
Coming in at about 300,000 words, it is a retelling of the last three books of the series. Stephen king word count 112263 274,672 bag of bones 203,3 black house 252,270 blockade billy 15,917 carrie 60,718 cell 121,931 christine 193,602 cujo 121,150 cycle of the werewolf 15,955 desperation. If you want your kids to read over one million words in a short period of time, one of your best chances is to get them interested in the harry potter book series. How many words are there in the harry potter book series. Find out how many words are in each of the harry potter books. Famous book series and novel word counts number of words. Even with two books to go order of the phoenix would hold the record for the highest page count of any harry potter book ever, at over 700 pages total.
That has to be the first 5 books of the black company. Also, heres another list i may swipe and add in here. As you can see, books two through five get progressively longer. Regarding the value of adhering to standard word counts, jackie bates, a former managing editor at aa publishing, adds. The total number of words for the harry potter series is over 1 million words. In relation to the rest of the series, the order of the phoenix is one of the best and most important books. Since just comparing the number of unique words in a book does not take its length into account i decided to calculate the percentage of unique words of the whole text. If i had a source to determine the word length per chapter of each book. Its almost impossible to give any other book 5 stars when compared to this series.
But we would be remiss if we did not offer one small suggestion before you embark on your final adventure with harry. The best way to find out how many pages will be in your book is to use this calculation method. The main books in the series, each of which has a movie and game two of each for the last book, are. Please help the harry potter wiki by adding notes andor references to bring this article to a higher standard of quality. British book awards 1997 childrens book of the year.
Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. Below are excerpts from a shakespeare novel and a harry potter book. I have therefore made some averages, based on what ive heard from publishers and agents at childrens book events, and from research and reading. The total word count for all seven books in the series is over 1 million words. The length of the book increases with the number of book in the series. I was surprised at the low count for the first book. If youre using open office, the word count is visible in the bottom left corner. However, i understand that the length of twilight is unusually long for a debut novel. How long is a book supposed to be on microsoft word. List of chapter titles and respective inuniverse time of occurrence in the harry potter book series. The word count gets progressively longer for books 1 to 5.
Rowlings first book established a strong market for harry potter, so noone told her to make her next ones short. In light of this, several reedsy editors have been kind enough to offer tips for authors who are in the revision process and looking to cut down on word count. The harry potter books are popular, and once someone reads the first book in the series, they often end up reading the entire series. Notebooks and letters, originally posted on in 2007 and 2008, is the last of my three novel length harry potter fanfiction stories. Word counts of the most popular books in the world foster grant uk. Ok i admit it, i put the harry potter reference in the title as link bait. Apr 11, 2015 harry potter word count the sorcerers stone 77,741 the chamber of secrets 85,735 the prisoner of azkaban 108,888 the goblet of fire 191,836 the order of the phoenix 261,906 the half blood prince 173,106 the deathly hallows 200,302.
Word count for the book harry potter and the sorcerers stone. Title pages uk edition harry potter and the philosophers stone 223 pages harry potter and the chamber of secrets 251 pages harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban 317 pages harry potter and the goblet of. The fi rst book in the series, har ry pott er and the p hilosophers stone, was first published by bloomsbury in 1997 with an initial printrun of 500 copies in hardback, 300 of which were distributed to libraries. Harry potter and the deathly hallows approximately 198,227, the scholastic count has yet to be announced. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of. Word count for the book harry potter and the sorcerers. The first book is around 95k words, so if every book is about that long, it should be closing in on a million words all told. Harry potter and the order of the phoenix 257,045 words. Once you know the average word count per page, you can guesstimate how many pages your book will have by dividing your total word count by about 390 for a 5.
Harry potter and the philosophers stone is a fantasy novel written by british author j. Jun 15, 2017 this is a general list of age categories and word counts for childrens books. I cant find the word count of my favorite book anywhere. Harry potter and the philosopher stone harry potter and the chamber of secrets harry potter.
1308 513 1204 1238 1261 331 579 945 563 100 1191 1350 1122 550 179 727 188 707 1044 748 396 639 135 504 645 552 38 1237 798 841 234 571 374