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How many pages should a Kindle book be?

by Afreidman
27 replies
Hi Warriors,

If you are reading this post you are either:

A- A kindle book creator

B- thinking of becoming one :confused:

Well, I finally joined group A!

Thing is I always come into the whole "lets create a book" mindset thinking that a book should have at least 100 pages or even more to look like a real book.

Maybe I'm old school, but I really have no idea whatsoever what the average page count is for a kindle book.

I heard of books that are 10 pages (like a report) and others go higher than that.

What I wanted to know is how many pages are your kindle ebooks?

Of course if I do decide to write 100 pages they are quality content, but maybe that's unnecessary.

Thanks for your response
Ari Freidman
#book #kindle #pages
  • Profile picture of the author Scott Lilly
    Hi Ari,

    I'm not an expert (I just released my first Kindle book three weeks ago), but I'll give you my answers to your question.

    Looking at the book in the latest Kindle reader app on my computer, it says it's 14 pages long. In Word 2007 or a PDF file, it's 23 pages. The word count is 5749 words.

    The book has some detailed information for a very small niche, and I'm selling it for $3.99. I've only sold 9 copies so far, but I never expected it to be a huge seller.
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Kindle or not... every book should have exactly that many pages as many needed to convey the message.
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    • Profile picture of the author Saxydez
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      Kindle or not... every book should have exactly that many pages as many needed to convey the message.
      Agreed. As long as you give a good amount of information on the topic that the book is. Give it a beginning, middle, end, Pros, Cons, etc. Then it should be enough pages long. Just get the information out to people
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  • Profile picture of the author pstamp76
    Honestly, I believe that the number of pages should be directly related to how much you have to say, and how long it takes to say it. If the book is about something that can be explained in ten pages, go for it! If it takes you 100, that's okay too. I'm not speaking as a Kindle ebook author, but I am speaking as a writer and an avid reader.

    Best of luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author Afreidman
      Originally Posted by pstamp76 View Post

      Honestly, I believe that the number of pages should be directly related to how much you have to say, and how long it takes to say it. If the book is about something that can be explained in ten pages, go for it! If it takes you 100, that's okay too. I'm not speaking as a Kindle ebook author, but I am speaking as a writer and an avid reader.

      Best of luck.
      I agree with you completely, thanks for the input
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  • Profile picture of the author Diane S
    Kindle books don't have pages. Keep going around talking about pages in a Kindle book and everyone will know you are a newbie!
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    • Profile picture of the author Afreidman
      Originally Posted by Diane S View Post

      Kindle books don't have pages. Keep going around talking about pages in a Kindle book and everyone will know you are a newbie!
      Thanks for the observation

      Well actually I was talking about how many pages should I write in MSword.

      Proud to be a Kindle newbie
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Coleman
        I recommend putting the page count in your book description:

        This book is 45 pages long.

        Just to head off an angry review about the book being too short. And so the customer knows exactly what he's getting.

        Paul
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        • Profile picture of the author Afreidman
          Originally Posted by Paul Coleman View Post

          I recommend putting the page count in your book description:

          This book is 45 pages long.

          Just to head off an angry review about the book being too short. And so the customer knows exactly what he's getting.

          Paul
          Thanks paul that's actually a good idea, that way the buyer knows what to expect as for the length of the book.

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        • Profile picture of the author WebPen
          Originally Posted by Paul Coleman View Post

          I recommend putting the page count in your book description:

          This book is 45 pages long.

          Just to head off an angry review about the book being too short. And so the customer knows exactly what he's getting.

          Paul
          That is a great idea.

          It probably doesn't hurt to test- maybe you can write one book that's only 10 pages long in MS Word, and another that's 50 and see which does better.

          Some people love simplicity, others love fluff ridiculous amounts of information that they'll probably never use
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          • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
            The technically correct answer is "one"...

            A more practical answer is the one Istvan gave - long enough to accomplish your goal, as promised in your description, and not one word longer.

            I'm not a fan of putting page counts in descriptions, since that can be manipulated so easily. Just ask any school kid writing a "5 page paper" the night before it's due.

            A word count, along with an approximate comparison to a trade book, seems to work well for many sellers.

            [If you want a conversion factor, look for books in your niche that have both hard copy and Kindle versions. Note the ratio of words to pages and do the arithmetic on your ebook.]

            Price plays a factor as well. People seem to expect more from a $9.95 ebook than a $0.99 one.

            You may have to experiment a bit until you find your sweet spot.
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            • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
              How many pages should a Kindle book be?
              How long is a piece of string?
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              • Profile picture of the author Afreidman
                Originally Posted by Jill Carpenter View Post

                How long is a piece of string?
                Sounds like a Zen Kuan.

                I get it
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                • Profile picture of the author grey77
                  Forget calling it a book -- it's really an article. There's a good Kindle book on the subject:
                  How to Publish and Sell Your Article on the Kindle: 12 Beginner Tips for Short Documents By Kate Harper
                  It's worth getting if you are serious about publishing short documents to Kindle marketplace.
                  All the best, Steve
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                  • Profile picture of the author onlineleben
                    Originally Posted by grey77 View Post

                    Forget calling it a book -- it's really an article. There's a good Kindle book on the subject:
                    How to Publish and Sell Your Article on the Kindle: 12 Beginner Tips for Short Documents By Kate Harper
                    It's worth getting if you are serious about publishing short documents to Kindle marketplace.
                    All the best, Steve
                    Yes, and this book calls itself an Article w. 8,700 words (a reviewer writes about 43-page article)
                    With salesrank of #1 in the kindle store for desktop publishing and a #10 in books/computers/graphic design i think it is a good investment ($1.34 for the kindle version, $7.95 for the book)
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                    • Profile picture of the author myoffice
                      Thanks for these comments. I too would like to get into the Kindle arena. I want to write a book on Lyme Disease. There is a lot of talk about it in Canada. I have a website about it and want to expand.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Azarna
                    Originally Posted by grey77 View Post

                    Forget calling it a book -- it's really an article.
                    Well said!

                    It bugs me how many people sell 'eBooks' which are 20 pages or so long. No one would consider a 20 page printer item to be a book. That is a booklet, or an article, or an essay, or a report even.

                    If you pop over to one of the Print On Demand publishers you will see that you can not print a 'perfect bound' book, (your basic book with a spine) with less than about 48 pages.

                    Calling a handful of pages an e'book' is practically fraud in my (fat, many paged!) book.

                    There is nothing wrong with calling an article an article! Honesty is always best, and a customer who is angry because they thought they were getting a proper book-length book is surely to be avoided.

                    Sorry, getting off my soap-box now. I strongly believe that the bad reputation eBooks are getting now should be reversed with a bit more honesty and clarity.
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            • Profile picture of the author onSubie
              Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

              I'm not a fan of putting page counts in descriptions...

              A word count, along with an approximate comparison to a trade book, seems to work well for many sellers.
              Hi

              Wouldn't putting a page count in the description be "an approximate comparison to a trade book"?

              This Kindle book with no pages reads like a 30 page paperback.

              I thought that was the purpose of the suggestion.

              As mentioned above for the romance niche, readers expect to be able to compare the length of a Kindle book with a novel they have on their shelf.

              Mahlon
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              • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
                Originally Posted by onSubie View Post

                Hi

                Wouldn't putting a page count in the description be "an approximate comparison to a trade book"?

                This Kindle book with no pages reads like a 30 page paperback.

                I thought that was the purpose of the suggestion.

                As mentioned above for the romance niche, readers expect to be able to compare the length of a Kindle book with a novel they have on their shelf.

                Mahlon
                The tricky part is 'what format is the book on their shelf'?

                Is it a hard cover? A pocket sized paperback, a la Harlequin and the like?

                "This Kindle book is about 30,000 words, or about the same length as a 200 page paperback."
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  • Profile picture of the author Mel White
    I agree with putting the page count in the announcement.

    You'll be competing with others with varying page counts, so the question really is -- what's unique about your content and detail that satisfied what others need and what these writers are overlooking?
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisAlta
    Go check out the Kindle store and see what books are best sellers within your niche and see how long their books are. That should give you a pretty good idea of how long your book should be, how their covers look, etc.

    Mimic people who already have the same success that you want yo!

    cheers!
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  • Profile picture of the author xlvba
    I am selling one that is 99 pages for 99 cents - a penny per page. This sounds good to me. Do you think so?
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    • Profile picture of the author angela99
      You just need to meet your readers' expectations.

      For example, if you're publishing an ebook on a topic that's highly focused, you'd just cover the topic.

      Examples in IM niche (um... apologies in advance, these are off the top of my head, I have no idea whether they exist as ebooks):

      * Make $100 a Day from Your Website;

      * Build a Buyers' List and Profit from It;

      * Article Marketing for Newbies.

      So, a focused topic may be just 20 to 30 print pages. (Yes, I know that this has NO meaning as far as an ebook is concerned. :-))

      Put the print page count in the product description...

      I'm on a Kindle romance writers' list, and buyers in that space WANT a rough page count. They're used to it -- they want to know the length of a Kindle ebook romance, so that they can work out how much of a reading experience they get for their dollar.

      So, if you're writing fiction, zip over to Amazon and see the page count for your favorite publishers' novels. Example: a Avon Romance book would be around 400 pages.

      Tip for fiction writers. Traditional publishers are publishing direct to Kindle/ Nook etc ebook, as you can see here with Avon's Impulse line -- Avon Romance*|* Avon Romance Submission Guidelines

      And here's what's fascinating. On that page, Avon says: "We're actively seeking all genres of romance of all lengths, including (but not limited to): historical, paranormal, contemporary, and erotica."

      So if a HUGE publishing house wants material of "all lengths", don't let the length concern you, but give readers some indication of what to expect.
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
    It all comes down to perception and value. If it's a Fiction book, it needs to be fairly long unless you are selling it for 99 cents. If it's non fiction, I would pay more to read a one page book that made a difference than a 500 page book that had a bunch of fluff.

    You have to marry perception and value with this and find the sweet spot for the kind of book that you are writing.
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  • Profile picture of the author alphadesign
    It doesn't matter how many pages does it have, it matters how many important information does it have and if it still conveys the importance of ebook/message to the readers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Rich
    Thanks Guys,
    Your posts have provided good information for my unasked questions and many that will make my next book a much better product. Mind if I compile this into a Kindle book
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  • Profile picture of the author marktheonlinesurfer
    Doesn't the page count/word count automatically appear in the amazon listing?
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