Expert: Susan Rand - 11/11/2004

Question
Thanks for your quick and detailed reply! just one more question, should the book be double spaced? i know once its made into a book its single spaced, but while im writing it should it be double or single spaced? thanks again! karin
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Followup To
Question -
this is kind of a silly question, but i wanted to know about how many pages does a book have to be, to be a book? i mean microsoft word pages...thank you, Karin
Answer -
Hello Karin!

I would say that most books range between 300-500 single-spaced pages, published. How many MS Word pages it will take to result in X number of published pages depends on several factors, such as: how the margins are set; what font and font size is used, whether it is fiction or non-fiction.

Why not experiment a bit? In Word, go to a new document. Choose one of the standard fonts: Courier New or Times New Roman, size 10, double spaced on the page, margins set at left 1.5, right 1, top 1, bottom 1. Grab one of your books and type page 3 into that template, or just fill the page with your own work.

Now do a word count. Go to Tools/Word Count and see how many words you have on that page. Examine five full-sized, full-length adult books (that you own, or can borrow, or find at the library. How many pages are they? Add them up and divide by five. Take that number and divide it by the number of words on the page you typed. That will tell you how many double-spaced MS pages you will need to make a book.

Publishers count words different ways. Some want characters counted, some want characters/spaces counted, some want words without spaces. Fortunately, Word tells all.

I hope this has helped. If it has, a nice rating would be greatly appreciated. I am proud of my high score over 340+ questions.

And good luck with your writing!

Answer
Hi Karin:

Manuscripts are presented double-spaced. This allows the editor to "mark up" the pages with instructions to the printer.

For the last word on manuscript preparation, go here: (You'll have to cut and paste as this site does not support hyperlinks):

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/cmosfaq.ManuscriptPreparation

If you don't find all you need there, type into your search engine, "Manuscript preparation." You should get many hits.

And good luck with your writing!