Publishing Question

[Sir_Maveric]

Not sure if this has been covered as I’ve never seen a post about it before. I’m wondering how to calculate pages in different formats for physical printing. I’m toying with the idea of having my stories lumped together and put to paperback, and have no idea how to calculate the number of pages it would be. All online sites require amount of pages the book is and I have no idea what to answer. It’s a personal thing, I’m not going to be trying to sell it. I am a fan of holding books and actually prefer it to reading online, but we do what we have to do to get our stories out. Anyone with any knowledge they could share would be greatly appreciated. Please and thanks!

 

[KeithD]

The problem is that print pages can be manipulated so that they'll take anything from 200 to 500 words and look about the same to the naked eye. Content also varies a lot based on how much white space formatting like short runs of dialogue create. Are you publishing through Amazon? If so, they'll have something close to a standard. When manual casting off was being done in publishing houses, 250 words/page was the general formula used. My most recent print book had 270 words/page. That might be a good enough average for you to use.

 

[Sir_Maveric]

Honestly, the idea came to me a few days ago and I started looking into it for fun. Haven’t chosen a publisher, and don’t need 100 copies. The idea of having a book I wrote on the shelf with the others in my library entices me. There is quite a bit of dialogue in parts of the story so from what you’re telling me, it may need to be more than one paperback. The last chapter is over 100k words.

 

[KeithD]

One of my print books has 350,000 words between covers. They small-fonted it. 630 pages. (Retails for $29.95)

 

[Sir_Maveric]

I like that idea; smaller fonts. At 270 words per page with regular, I’m looking at ~450 pages for the last chapter alone not taking into account the dialogue. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I’ll look into this a bit more and see about formatting to fit it all into one book.