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Determine the number of words per page - Select an average page from the book that contains only text. Count the number of words on this page. (Tip: draw a light pencil line through every 100th word to keep track of your place.)
Determine the number of text pages in the book - Take the total number of pages in the book and subtract the table of contents, preface, index, etc.
Determine the number of non-text pages in the book - Many books contain graphics, photos, and captions along with the text. See below for examples of how to determine what portion is non-text.
Estimate the word count for the book - To estimate the number of words in the book, first subtract the number of non-text pages from the number of text pages.Then multiply that number by the number of words per page. You will now have your estimated word count.
For example, suppose a book has 100 pages. You count 350 words on an average page. You find a total of 20 non-text pages. This is how you would figure your estimated word count:
100 - 20 = 80 ... 80 x 350 = 28,000
28,000 is the estimated word count for this book.
How to determine what is non-text material
In the above example 1 page is non-textual material.
The first page is 1/2 non-text, the second page is all text
and the third page contains 1/2 non-text material.
In the above example all of the pages are the same.
If all of the pages in your book are approximately the same, you can count the number of words on a page and use that as the average one-page word count. You do not need to subtract any non-text material pages.
In the above example, about 1 page is non-textual material.
The first page contains approximately 1/4 page of non-text material,
the second page is about 1/2 non-text material, and the third page about 1/3 non-text material.
Note: If your final non-text estimate includes a fraction of a page, you can either round your estimate up or down, or convert you number to a decimal and use it in the formula |
