Forgive me if this is a very stupid question. I've heard that 250 words equals a page in a novel, meaning a 400-page novel would be about 100,000 words. If I'm aiming for a novel that long, then would I do a word count in my word processor to see if the word count is 100,000 yet? Or is there more to this?
Word Count
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That would be a reasonable approximation. Both the words-per-page and MS (etc) wordcount are only estimates, but good enough for your purpose. I would suggest you check out the story lengths your favorite publishers accept, but that is a common sort of length for a novel.
WannabeWriter said:
Do both. The computer count will generally be less. If it's way off, then maybe there's something wrong, like you don't have your ms in standard format. The difference between these two counts cost me a read by a small publisher, who thought I was lying about the words. But no loss, as it was a lousy company.
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http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26126
Check out the above link and scroll down until you see Word Count.
Check out the above link and scroll down until you see Word Count.
Ah, that clarifies things. I didn't even see that pinned post about manuscripts. Thanks for the link. 
So now I basically do both a word processor word count and a page count after following the industry format carefully.
So now I basically do both a word processor word count and a page count after following the industry format carefully.
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