Do you round up the word count in your query letter?

Draíocht · Feb 6, 2012

This may sound like a ridiculous question, but I've been researching query letters before I begin mine and I've noticed that all the word counts appear to be rounded numbers, (ie: 100,000 or 95,000). Do you round it up to the nearest even number? Thus, if my manuscript were 95,644, would I write 95,000?
Thanks for taking the time to answer!

Torgo · Feb 6, 2012

Yes. I'd round up, but yes.

gothicangel · Feb 6, 2012

Yes, except I would round it up to 96,000.

Buffysquirrel · Feb 6, 2012

Round up or round down as appropriate. I'd make that 96k too, according to what they taught me in school so very long ago. Gah.

jaksen · Feb 6, 2012

95,644 is rounded up to 96K.

Jaligard · Feb 6, 2012

It ain't rocket science. 95,000 words is fine. So is 96,000. Heck, so is 100,000.

IceCreamEmpress · Feb 6, 2012

I would round to the nearest 500, but that's me. Some people round to the nearest 100. You certainly can't go wrong rounding to the nearest 1,000.

Draíocht · Feb 7, 2012

Apologies that was meant to say round up to 96,000. Thanks everyone for answering.

Swannington · Feb 7, 2012

I read that you round to the nearest 5,000 words. If your MS is 92,000, say its 90,000. If its 97,000, say its 100,000.

I'm not sure being off by a few 1,000 words is really going to matter or anger your agent/publisher. They really are just after a ballpark figure. The length will no doubt shrink or lengthen as you work with your editor anyways.

Lseeber · Feb 7, 2012

Huh.

Never thought of rounding my word count. Learn something new everyday. Why is this done? To account for different ways that word counts are measured by different processors?

Laura

jjdebenedictis · Feb 7, 2012

Lseeber said:
Huh.

Never thought of rounding my word count. Learn something new everyday. Why is this done? To account for different ways that word counts are measured by different processors?

Because there used to not be such a thing as word processors, and people had to estimate the word count by the number of pages and number of lines on a page.

Also, the only reason they care about the word count is because they want to know approximately how big the finished book will be. 1,000 words is only four manuscript pages, and that's negligible compared to the size of the novel.

For short stories, you'd want to round to the nearest hundred or so, depending on how big the story is.

Do you round up the word count in your query letter?

Draíocht

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

gothicangel

Toughen up.

Buffysquirrel

jaksen

Caped Codder

Jaligard

tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper

IceCreamEmpress

Hapless Virago

Draíocht

Swannington

Flying The Violent Skies

Lseeber

jjdebenedictis

is watching you via her avatar