interpreting a word limit

Word count

veinglory said:

"no more than 8 pages of single spaced 12 pt"

Would that be up to about 4,800 words as an a priori guess?

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I'd say more like 4,000, but you may be right. But that's a weird way of requesting word count. I'm assuming this is for an e-magazine. If it is, I think I'd just see if my story fit in eight pages, single-spaced, and not worry about actual count.

words

veinglory said:

It's for an print anthology (Starbooks, gay/erotic genre). I know spacing, dialogue etc will mess up any precision but I was trying to guess a number to decide how much plot that's going to involve. Maybe not so much, eh?

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A print anthology mentioned single-spacing? That's doubly weird.

Out of curiosity, I tried with my word processor. Dark Courier gave me only 3,059 words, and Times New Roman gave me 4,052 words. It would have been easier had they specified which twelve point font they wanted. These pages had quite a bit of dialogue, however, so I'd say anywhere from 3,500-4,500 words on average.

Words.

veinglory said:

Thanks a lot for trying that out--I will see if they specify a font elsewhere--otherwise I suspect the font used with be determined by the story length...

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I agree with that. Hey, if they don't actually specify a font, then, yeah, go with Times New Roman if you neeed more words, and Dark Courier, or Courier New, if you need fewer words.