word count

[Kharisma]

I think I have seen it somewhere but i can't find it in Search. Anyone know if the commom words per page is? I read on a different forum 300 but I thought I'd seen somewhere else 250? That makes a difference when I am submitting somewhere that is very word limited.

Thanks
sherry

[Shadow_Ferret]

Oddly enough just today I was reading something about word count on agentquery.com and they said if you're sending it to an agent, use the computer program's word counter, don't go by the weirdly arbitrary 250 words per page one.

Go down to Assumption #2 (http://www.agentquery.com/format_tips.aspx)

[jbal]

Depends on the book. I've heard it said here that 250 is about average, and this is the case on a double spaced ms.
However, to get an idea, I went and counted words on some paperbacks (where I expect I will end up if at all), and came up with closer to 300 or more on pages with very little or no dialogue. It's higher on hardbacks, but of course it all depends on the size of the print and the margins.
I hope this helps.

[emeraldcite]

Check out this post (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=657722&postcount=10)from the Novels FAQ thread (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35603)stickied at the top of the forum:


Also, check out word count under Cathy's excellent Manuscript Formatting Guide (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26126).