Does My Novel Have Enough Pages?

I can't answer that question for you. I can, however, hopefully educate you so that you can answer that question for yourself.

Because my answer is: "You're asking the wrong question."

When it comes to writing a lot of writers put stock into page count. Unfortunately page count can be a dubious thing because of how many words are on each page. I used to own a couple of books in multiple formats, but they were victims of The Great Book Purge of 2016 in order to move, so I can't offer a direct comparison of hardback to paperback page count.

"How many pages is it?" I hear from pretty much everyone whenever I tell them about something I'm writing and, every time, I launch into a description of how word count is actually a more accurate indicator. I've seen a lot of eyes glaze over as a result.

Even I used to put some stock into Microsoft's page number, so I was floored when I got my first proof copy and, expecting it to be thin, found it to be a fairly average-sized book!

So here, for your education, is my attempt at a translation of word count to page count.

Readers: "Uh oh, she's bringing math into this."

First, consider text size. I have a manuscript in progress that is 17,000 words. I can immediately change the page count from 37 to 35 by changing it form Calibri font to Times New Roman font. I could also change the page count from 37 to 42 by changing my Calibri font from size 11 to size 12.

There are too  many variables in a document to rely on page count and this is why you should rely on word count instead.

Unless your manuscript contains nothing but "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" the word count is going to be an accurate representation of your hard work. No matter how much you tinker with the font type, size, or margins, your word count will always be the same unless you actually add or subtract words from it.

James Patterson could publish this and it would somehow be a New York Times Bestseller.

Next are some guidelines in regards to word count and what your manuscript technically is. I could swear I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating. Camille LaGuire of The Daring Novelist lays it out beautifully here in this blog post you should totally read. She has 8 different types but I will only be listing 3 as I have always understood it:

Short story: 1,000 to 10,000 words.
Novella: 10,000 to 50,000 words.
Novel: 50,000 and up.

A lot of writers wonder if their novels are long enough. I wondered this a lot with Dusted in its early stages. The story was wrapping up after just 100 pages and I worried it was too small because I had equated 100 pages in Microsoft Word with 100 pages in a book. In reality 100 pages in Microsoft word is pretty respectable, and Dusted actually grew after several edits.

Let me break down some of my manuscripts in both their word count and their Microsoft Word page count and, if applicable, their paperback page count (all of my paperbacks are 5x8 in size.)

Dusted
Word count: 74,858
Microsoft Word Pages: 189 (I found another version that's only 105 pages but contains the same amount of content, weird.)
Paperback Pages: 297

Wanderlust
Word count: 10,909
Microsoft Word Pages: 24
Paperback Pages: 46

Book 3
Word count: 17,125
Microsoft Word Pages: 37

Book 4
Word count: 41,650
Microsoft Word Pages:95
Paperback (proofread copy) pages: 211

Book 5
Word count: 76,396
Microsoft Word Pages:93

So, if you decide you want to use Microsoft Word's page count as an indicator of whether or not your manuscript is at novel-length, let's break it down into averages. Here are those same manuscripts from Microsoft Word, rounded down to the nearest whole, and in no particular order because I have already managed to confuse myself:

712, 396, 821, 454, 462, and 438 words per page.

So, as you can see, the words per page can vary wildly.

Let's break down my paperback page-to-word ratio.

252, 237, 197.

That's pretty significant. One Microsoft Word page can equal as many as 2 or even 4 paperback pages!

Long mathematical story short: If you're using Microsoft Word page count as an indicator of your success, then you're really selling yourself short.