Writing Your Book: Word Counts in 2023-2024

Over the last year, I’ve received a lot of questions from writers about word count in their manuscripts. I’ve helped writers edit and refine their manuscripts to be shorter and more specific to today’s publishing market.

Word Counts for Writers — More insight into Word Counts

If you’ve read my previous post about how word counts help authors and publishers, you might be interested to know what the word counts are for some published books.

I’ve split this list out into books that are shorter than the standard length, followed by the books that fit the standard submission policies for publishers today, followed by books that are longer than the standard length of a published book today.

Here are some word counts of a variety of published books:

Books of shorter length

The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka– 21,810 words
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway, 26,601
A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens, 28,944
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck– 29,160 words
Animal Farm by George Orwell – 29,966 words
Double Indemnity, James M. Cain – 30,072 words
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl – 30,644 words
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf– 37,761 words
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis – 38,421 words
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon – 46,573 words
Fahrenheit 451. Ray Bradbury– 46,118 words
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – 46,333 words
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – 47,094 words
The Red Badge of Courage– Stephen Crane 47,180 words
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton – 48,523 words
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut– 49,459 words
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle– 49,965 words

Books of standard length

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf – 63,422 words
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley – 64,531 words
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury – 64,768
The Color Purple by Alice Walker – 66,556 words
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson – 66,950
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – 67,203 words
Ironweed by William Kennedy – 67,606
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – 67,707 words
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain – 69,066
Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston – 70,957
White Fang, by Jack London – 72,071
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger – 73,404 words
Bridget Jones’s Diary, by Helen Fielding – 75,567 words
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling – 76,944 words
The Dressmaker’s Gift, Fiona Valpy – 80,101 words
The Crossing (Harry Bosch) by Michael Connelly – 80,376 words
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – 84,845 words
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling – 85,141 words
The World That We Knew – Alice Hoffman – 95,021 words
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins – 94,891 words
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien – 95,356 words
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – 99,750 words
What the Wind Knows – Amy Harmon – 100,206 words
Hunger Games – Susan Collins – 101,451 words
Educated – Tara Westover – 99,854 words
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – 100,388 words
Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens – 105,000 words
Divergent by Veronica Roth – 105,143 words
The Storyteller’s Secret – Sejal Bedani – 110,000 words
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – 107,253 words
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman – 112,815 words
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer – 118,975 words
Atonement by Ian McEwan – 123,378 words

Books of longer length

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – 155,717 words
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien – 156,198 words
Beneath a Scarlet Sky – Mark Sullivan – 150,000 words
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling – 168,923 words
White Teeth by Zadie Smith – 169,389 words
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck – 169,481 words
Dune by Frank Herbert – 187,240 words
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien – 187,790 words
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – 190,637 words
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen – 196,774 words
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling – 198,227 words
Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel – 200,000 words
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville – 209,117 words
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon – 216,020 words
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova – 240,000 words
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling – 257,045 words
Ulysses by James Joyce – 262,869 words
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin – 298,000 words
A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin – 300,000 words
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin – 326,000 words
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry – 365,712 words
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell – 418,053 words
A Dance of Dragons by George R.R. Martin – 422,000 words
A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin – 424,000 words
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace – 543,709 words

An earlier version of this list was originally compiled by former literary agent Nathan Bransford from a variety of sources. I have added many additional books to this list along with other amendments and updates.