Hi all! Question about book lengths...

Mjollnir13 · Feb 17, 2007

First off, hello from another newb!

I am currently writing a fictional story using Word. My question is, does the length (number of pages) convert over to a printed book equally? If I write 10 single spaced pages in Word, does that actually equal 10 pages if my story gets printed?

I am shooting for a certain range of length, for the 1st part, and I don't want to write so many pages in Word and find out that it is actually a lot shorter then I thought.

Thnanks!

louisgodwin · Feb 17, 2007

Hello! First, welcome to AW.

There's different factors to take in here. The publisher will choose their own font, justification, amount of space inbetween lines, etc. None of which will probably mesh with your printed manuscript.

Also, editors really won't care about the number of pages in your manuscript. What they will care about is word count.

And (this is just a standard rule of thumb) never single-space your manuscripts unless you see somewhere that the editor specifically requests this. The vast majority of editors out there that I've read about and talked to prefer double-space manuscripts. It makes it easier for them to read and sometimes they want to write little notes inbetween the lines.

Nickie · Feb 17, 2007

Welcome to the Cooler! The pages in the book will certainly be more than what you have, but that depends on the format the publisher uses.

Nickie

brianm · Feb 18, 2007

Take a look at the Writing Novel forum. There's a sticky thread in there that covers proper manuscript formatting.

Ol' Fashioned Girl · Feb 18, 2007

Welcome to AW! Good info and advice above. See you around the Cooler!

Little Red Barn · Feb 18, 2007

Big Welcome to AW!

san_remo_ave · Feb 18, 2007

Welcome to AW!

MandaAnne · Feb 19, 2007

Greetings from a fellow noob.

Hope you get your questions answered. But most important right now is to just keep writing. Get the story out, and the format will follow.

Just my $0.02.

sthrnwriter · Feb 19, 2007

Welcome to AW!

Moon Daughter · Feb 19, 2007

Welcome to the cooler.

Freckles · Feb 19, 2007

Welcome to AW!!! Good luck on the novel.

startwearingpurple · Feb 19, 2007

Welcome. id check out the novels forum if i were you, hope you like it here
-SWP

Hi all! Question about book lengths...

Mjollnir13

I am the Meatlump King!

louisgodwin

Back from the dead

Nickie

Not too old to learn

brianm

Brian Boru

Ol' Fashioned Girl

Hand? What hand?

Little Red Barn

haz own threads

san_remo_ave

Back at it

MandaAnne

sthrnwriter

Snoopy Dance!

Moon Daughter

Freckles

Oooh, the Rainbow Connection

startwearingpurple

wild crazy curves of me.