Word Count for Novels and Magazines

Now, word count sounds simple. Press the "Word Count" button on your word processor and there it is. Unfortunately, this count is likely to be wrong. Why? It all depends on your definition of "word." To a computer, a word is anything with space around it. "To a tee" is three words. "Antidisestablishmentarianism" is one. Simple. Too simple.

Publishers are concerned with space; the space a story or article will take up on the printed page when published. And the computer method is inaccurate. Some words are long, some words are short. So, years ago, publishers set up a standard definition: a word is six characters (including spaces).

Now the length of the word didn't matter. You could determine the length of a story without worrying about the length of the words in it. "Antidisestablishmentarianism" is just short of five words. "To a tee" is two and a third. You get more accurate counts.

But there's another factor. Consider this exchange of dialog:

"I'm pregnant," he said.
"What?"

A computer would call this five words.
A magazine editor would count it as 25.

Magazine

So, years ago, a standard method was developed to count words in a story:

1)Count the number of characters in an average, mid-paragraph line (BTW, this all assumes a mono spaced font. If you're using a proportional font, the number of characters can vary immensely, throwing off the numbers and word count).

2)Divide by six. This is the number of words per line.

3)Count the number of lines on a page. (This includes any # for blank lines.)

4)Multiply #2 by #3 to get the number of words per page.

5)Multiply by the number of full pages (plus any fractional pages), to get the total number of words.

Round the number to the nearest hundred. Authors tend to round up; editors round down. This is the number you put on the front page of the manuscript.

There's a second reason to use this other than making it easier for editors: this method usually gives higher word counts (My count is generally about 20% higher than the computer's). Higher word counts mean higher payments. It's perfectly OK with the editors to use this method, so you might as well take advantage.

Novel

Novel word count is much easier.

1) Set all margins to 1 inch.
2) Set Font to Courier New
3) Double Spaced
4) Widows and Orphans should be set to off.
5) Chapter Titles start 1/2 way down the page.

This should result in 25 lines per page, with 10 words on a page. The result is 250 words a page. New chapters start 1/2 way down the page.

"I'm pregnant," he said.
"What?"