Figuring out approximate word counts of published novels (especially ebooks)?

[writera]

One novel in particular, which is one of my comps, has a prologue section in it that I'd like to figure out the word count of. I'd also like to get an idea of the overall word count of the novel itself. I cannot paste any of the text into Word to check - due to DRM protection, understandably. I know we can gauge rough ideas per Word pages (250-300 words) but not sure how this relates to a printed paperback let alone a Kindle book! I've tried googling to see if the word count is reported anywhere but it's not.

Does anyone have any tips beyond manually counting the words? Which I guess I can do - perhaps I could count the ones manually on one Kindle "page" then multiply them by the number of Kindle "pages" to get an idea. But if there's any other methods or tips or known formulas to work this out (for hardback, paperback, and especially ebooks) it would be good to know. For example, maybe the word count is published somewhere I can't find on Google/haven't thought to check? Or the amount of bytes of an ebook can be used to estimate it? Or there's some other trick I haven't thought of? I'm probably overthinking this - it's probably just a matter of counting the pages and multiplying that number by roughly 250 or 300 per page like with a Word document. But if there was any way to get a more precise count or if these figures are published anywhere or measurable by download/byte size or something, it would be good to know.

(As I'm posting primarily about an ebook/Kindle book I thought this was the best section for my post but it does also touch on hardbacks and paperbacks so maybe this would be better posted somewhere else? Kind mods, please feel free to move to a more appropriate section if this is the case. Thank you.)

 

[Brigid Barry]

Why do you need the word count?

Reddit (via DuckDuckGo) recommended ReadingLength dot com. I have no idea what the site is, never used it, visit at your own risk.

 

[writera]

I can’t find the book on that site, but thanks. I just want to compare the length of my prologue to the one in the comp and the manuscript itself. I know the general genre word counts, though I think the comp exceeds them, maybe by a lot, and I’d like to compare some specifics, more out of curiosity than anything.

 

[CMBright]

Not a direct answer but

How Long Should a Prologue Be
How Long Can a Prologue Be
What's the Perfect Length for a Prologue

To link a few of the articles that came up when I searched for 'typical length of a prologue by genre'. All three have tips beyond word counts, including tips on what not to do in prologues.

The number that stuck was 1,500-2,500 range.

If you just want the average word count of novels of a given genre, just google average word count mystery/sci-fi/romance/whatever the genre is.

 

[Maryn]

In the Olden Tymes, Amazon and Kobo had word counts for a great many works of fiction. Alas, it is no more, at Amazon anyway. I don't know about Kobo.

You're probably stuck literally counting words. What I'd do is count three pages that are full text, with dialogue, no white space marking the beginning or end of a chapter, and average them for the count for a full page. How many full pages are in the prologue? How many half or third pages? You can make a decent estimate, close enough to have some use.

 

[alexp336]

This was a fun challenge, and I may have figured out a way to do it (albeit fiddly). If you highlight the whole prologue in the Kindle book, that should show up in Amazon's online highlight/note browser (log in with your Amazon account in your browser of choice). That should allow you to then copy that section and paste it into Word or similar, and get a word count.

The main hiccup comes down to length, as Amazon limits total highlight size per book. As far as I can tell, that limit is 10-20% of total ebook length, so it'll depend how long the whole book is, and how big the prologue is.

Please let me know if it works! I am emotionally invested now!

 

[Maryn]

Wow! If that works, it's way, way cool.

 

[writera]

This was a fun challenge, and I may have figured out a way to do it (albeit fiddly). If you highlight the whole prologue in the Kindle book, that should show up in Amazon's online highlight/note browser (log in with your Amazon account in your browser of choice). That should allow you to then copy that section and paste it into Word or similar, and get a word count.

The main hiccup comes down to length, as Amazon limits total highlight size per book. As far as I can tell, that limit is 10-20% of total ebook length, so it'll depend how long the whole book is, and how big the prologue is.

Please let me know if it works! I am emotionally invested now!

Thank you so much, this was a great suggestion and it did work.

The only tricky parts were 1) Highlighting across multiple pages and 2) It began to show error message in highlights "Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits" and cut out a few lines. But I got most of the prologue highlighted, then deleted those highlights/notes and went back and re-highlighted the little bits it missed, ultimately getting it all into word.

For a short prologue, it worked and was only slightly painstaking. But it probably wouldn't be ideal for a full/long chapter let alone highlighting a whole book (even if it allowed it).

It did solve the mystery of this book's prologue word count for me, though! (It turned out to be 1,141 words.) Now if I can just figure out the whole book's word count... That will probably be easier, there's likely an estimate per page and I'll check how many pages it is in paperback to get a rough idea.

Thank you so much again @alexp336!

 

[alexp336]

Awesome! Glad you got to a number!

 

[alexp336]

Now if I can just figure out the whole book's word count...

If it's in this database, you might be in luck.

If not, you at least know the word count for the prologue, so could presumably divide that number by however many pages the prologue is when you open it in the Kindle app, then multiply that by the total number of pages? Not perfect, but I'd figure it gets close?

 

[lizmonster]

If it's in this database, you might be in luck.

FWIW, this database was 20K low on my first book, and 30K (!) high on my second and third books.

 

[writera]

I can’t find it there. The book is A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle.

 

[alexp336]

Kobo says 116k words but I don't know if they're calculating that in some way other than the actual files.

Edit: I just checked a couple of my books on Kobo, and their count was ~2-6k words higher each time than my actual files, but otherwise close.

 

[writera]

Wow, thanks for that info, I did think it seemed like a slightly higher word count than some murder mysteries so that does sound about right, that it’s 100K or more.

 

[ElaineB]

In the olden days, I had to count words for author payment at a print magazine. Count the words in one line, or a few to get an average, then count the lines on a page. Screen in this case. So some multiplication, and you'll get a good idea.

 

[Akvranel]

In the olden days, I had to count words for author payment at a print magazine. Count the words in one line, or a few to get an average, then count the lines on a page. Screen in this case. So some multiplication, and you'll get a good idea.

I handwrite early drafts, and I do this exact thing to get a ballpark idea where I stand. My estimate is usually within 5% of the eventual typed word count.

 

[Chris P]

This risks a derail, but I never understood why this either doesn't seem to be important info for publishers to provide readers, or is kept close hold.

Any insights why?

 

[writera]

This risks a derail, but I never understood why this either doesn't seem to be important info for publishers to provide readers, or is kept close hold.

Any insights why?

Is it being withheld or is it more an oversight (i.e. not assuming anyone is interested)?

 

[Chris P]

Is it being withheld or is it more an oversight (i.e. not assuming anyone is interested)?

No clue. I'd be interested to know.

 

[writera]

No clue. I'd be interested to know.

It certainly does seem like a closely-guarded secret, I just can't see why anyone would want to keep it a secret which made me think it might just be an oversight or an assumption that no reader or anyone (other than some of us writers) would be interested.