Book Length

Adhering to the page length specified in your contract is important to the publishing process. A book that is much smaller than competing books might be perceived to have less value, a lower price notwithstanding; one that is much longer might need to be priced too high. And the publisher's estimates of manufacturing costs and sales are directly linked to the length of your book. For these reasons, a manuscript that is significantly shorter or longer than planned might need to be returned to you for revision.

The following guidelines will enable you to estimate how close your manuscript is to its contracted length. It is a good idea to measure the cumulative length every few chapters as you attempt to gauge whether you are going to fall short of the desired length or run over it. As you proceed, remember that three manuscript elements must be considered in determining your book's final page count: text, artwork, and front and back matter.

Text

The first step is to estimate how many characters you've written. You can calculate this by counting the number of characters per line (including spaces) at several different points throughout the manuscript, then finding the average. Multiply that average by the total number of typed lines in the chapter to get the number of characters in that chapter. Alternatively, if your word processor has a character count function, you can use it to determine the nu

Book Length

Adhering to the page length specified in your contract is important to the publishing process. A book that is much smaller than competing books might be perceived to have less value, a lower price notwithstanding; one that is much longer might need to be priced too high. And the publisher's estimates of manufacturing costs and sales are directly linked to the length of your book. For these reasons, a manuscript that is significantly shorter or longer than planned might need to be returned to you for revision.

The following guidelines will enable you to estimate how close your manuscript is to its contracted length. It is a good idea to measure the cumulative length every few chapters as you attempt to gauge whether you are going to fall short of the desired length or run over it. As you proceed, remember that three manuscript elements must be considered in determining your book's final page count: text, artwork, and front and back matter.

Text

The first step is to estimate how many characters you've written. You can calculate this by counting the number of characters per line (including spaces) at several different points throughout the manuscript, then finding the average. Multiply that average by the total number of typed lines in the chapter to get the number of characters in that chapter. Alternatively, if your word processor has a character count function, you can use it to determine the number of characters in each chapter. In Microsoft Word, this count can be found under the File/Properties/Statistics menu.

Next, you need to convert the number of characters in your text chapter to their length in final book pages. The page measurements table below shows the approximate conversion based on the trim size of the book. You can arrive at the number of text pages in your chapter by simply divide your number of characters by the characters per text page in the table. For example, a chapter manuscript containing 29,700 characters will convert to approximately 12 text pages (29,700 ÷ 2,500) in the 6 × 9" format.

The actual number of characters per printed book page will depend on many factors besides trim size, including type design and the number of headings, tables or other display elements in your manuscript. A manuscript that is highly tabular, for example, will not convert accurately using the above formula. If you adhere to the measurements in the page measurements table, however, in most cases your manuscript will translate into a book of the desired length.

To arrive at the complete length estimate for your chapter and for your entire book, you must now add your length estimates for artwork and front and back matter as described in the succeeding sections. Frequently estimate how much you've written. If you find yourself having difficulty writing enough to meet your contracted length or cutting what you've written down to length, contact your editor for guidance.

Artwork

To determine how much space the artwork will take, visualize whether each piece will fill ¼, ½, or 1 full page in the finished book. Consider the usable image area size (see the page measurements table, which gives approximate dimensions) in making this determination. Note that the size you envision for a figure should approximately reflect its relative importance and complexity. Add the total artwork area for each figure to arrive at the number of pages required for artwork in that chapter. For example, if you envision 10 half-page illustrations and 2 full-page illustrations, add 7 pages to the estimated length of your book.

Front matter

Measure such elements as the preface, foreword, and introduction just as you do the text. Include the half-title, title, copyright, table of contents, and dedication pages in your calculations, along with a blank overleaf page for each of these. (The dedication can sometimes be placed on the back of the half-title page or, in a pinch, shoehorned into the copyright page.) The page count mentioned in your contract includes all front and back matter, so you cannot neglect these items. Note that a typical front matter including an average length Preface can run 16 pages.

Index

To arrive at the page length of your index, add up the estimated page length of your text and artwork. You will produce approximately 1 index page for every 25 pages of text and art.

Total page count

Once you have measured the text, artwork, front matter and index, you can compare your estimated page count to the contractual page count. Total the number of text and artwork pages for each chapter, as well as your estimated page count for the front matter and index. If this measurement is more than 10% higher or lower than the page count specified in your contract, contact your editor for instructions. When submitting your final manuscript, please also be sure to supply us with your best estimated final character count.