computer page vs. book page

A page will have as many words as the person laying it out wants it to have. Just worry about the wordcount and leave the rest for the publisher to worry about.

Depends what you're writing, the pace, the style, the audience...

Puddle Jumper said:

What's a good word count per chapter?

Click to expand...

Whatever it takes.

I think publishers are more interested in total word count.

~Nancy

Ditto what others have said, word count is all that matters. But if this is really bugging you, just for fun you can set up your page size, fonts and margins to a typical book size and take a look. Just don't submit a manuscript in that format.

caw.

While it's true that there is a lot of variation, I've found the average of about 350 words per page (counting whitespace as significant) in trade paperbacks. If you have 12 point courier *single space* as you describe, I suspect you're getting about 500 words per page (with whitespace significant again), so a reasonable estimate of paperback page count for your manuscript is manuscript pages times 1.4.

You are correct that for submission you should be double spacing your manuscript; at that point you'll have twice as many pages, and the figure to multiply by will be about 0.7.

For YA books, the font would probably be a little larger. Add maybe 25% to the length (I'm guessing here, but it's probably in the right ballpark at least). Younger children's books larger still. Maybe 50% more length.

Word count per chapter can be anything from 1 to the entire novel. I'd suggest, though, that it should be something that your readers would be comfortable with in a single sitting. I tend to average around 5,000, but I guess for younger audiences shorter chapters would be more appropriate.