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How Long Should A Kindle Book Be?

by mrozlat
26 replies
How many words/pages? That is all
#book #kindle #long
  • Profile picture of the author harvie316
    how longs a piece of string?

    what I mean by that is it depends on a number of factors to give you any kind of answer. You gave us no infomation on what the book is also, so you cant expect anyone to pluck random numbers for you.

    Give us more information, then perhaps we may be able to give you a ball park figure (assuming we get a lot of info)


    if you mean words per page, check other kindle books and take a look.
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    • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
      What type of book do you plan to write?

      Here is a general guide:
      • Short story . . . 6k - 7.5k words
      • Novelette . . . 8k - 15k words
      • Novella . . . 23k - 32k words
      • Novel . . . 35k - 55+k words
      You don't estimate 'pages' in Kindle because they are user dependent on how the reader has his/her screen set.
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      • Profile picture of the author Johnny1975
        A slightly different question. How long should a short home study course be? And how much audio / video should it have?
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        • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
          Originally Posted by Johnny1975 View Post

          A slightly different question. How long should a short home study course be? And how much audio / video should it have?
          Enough so the person using the course can learn the information they need and/or are required to know.
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          • Profile picture of the author GuruGazette
            Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

            Enough so the person using the course can learn the information they need and/or are required to know.
            Exactly. I have a photo tutorial that's about 20 "pages" and an illustrated general information/idea book the equivalent of 200 pages. A couple dozen others run the gamut between those two sizes. Depends a lot on the niche and the content.
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      • Profile picture of the author aprilm
        I write mostly non fiction, they are all around 8k -10k depending on the topic, and they do well. I've never had anyone complain they were too short. I always mention in the description that it is a shorter book and put the word count in there just so people know exactly what they are getting.

        I do have a fiction book that is around 82K that I have not published yet. Honestly, I think it depends on your audience and your topic. That being said, I wouldn't write a 1000 word article and sell it as a Kindle book, that may make some folks upset.
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        • Profile picture of the author Eric Lovelace
          I would say as long as it takes to tell your whole story, method, advice, etc.

          Eric
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          • Profile picture of the author AffiliateBlogger
            Steve Scott, a successful indie Kindle author, mentions 13K-18Kwords as the sweet spot for a non-fiction Kindle ebook. These books are often priced in the $2.99-5.99 US range. I'm sure many of them perform well at $9.99. I recently participated in a Kindle pricing poll. The last time I looked, the sweet spot for pricing was 5.99. Selections below that figure were deemed suspicious due to the low price. Selections above 5.99 created a hesitance in the reader. They were more likely to wait to decide if the author was unknown. If I remember correctly, the poll was geared to an indie author audience. While there's no official rule, novels are often categories in the 40K + word category. In my opinion, I'd be cautious about a low word count and a low price.
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    If you want to get picky, since Kindle books are displayed on a variety of screens using viewer-defined font sizes, every Kindle book on the market is only one page long.

    Now that I have that out of my system, I think you are asking about 'page equivalents' - how many pages if it were a printed book.

    For that, there is no hard and fast answer.

    Same with word counts. You can get a rough idea by selecting the genre you're interested in and looking at the best seller list. That should give you a rough approximation for what the market wants.

    Just don't add a lot of padding and filler to reach some magical length. Two reasons often cited for giving bad reviews are lack of editing (spelling/grammar errors and typos) and too much fluff.
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  • Profile picture of the author bnorton2010
    No one ever likes to give a direct answer to this question. Lol. For non-fiction books, I would aim for between 5 and 10,000 words. I have published 8 ebooks and the average length is about 7000 words. Of course it depends on what you're writing about, but most topics can be explained pretty thoroughly in under 10,000 words. The minimum required length for amazon is 2500 words I believe, but I always aim for at least 5K, which is equivalent to about 25 pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Ames
    How long should a Kindle book be? Not longer than the Kindle. That's my best guess. After all it would just not fit .
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    Here is the answer of one expert when he was interviewed – sorry, I didn't keep his name:


    “Length depends on the genre. I’ve got some short stories that are about 2,500 words (as a minimum) that I sell for $0.99. Then I have some information, non-fiction books that can run to 50,000 words and I’ll sell those for $9.99. So it can vary widely, depending on your genre.”


    I believe that it is a good idea to begin with short books, but not too short. You should also price your non-fiction books around $2.99 and fiction $0.99 in the beginning. Later you can change the price. If you are selling them you can charge more.


    Pay attention to the fact that Kindle readers like what is cheap and nice.
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  • Profile picture of the author JoeMack
    My son published a title about haunted places in the state we live in. It's only a few pages long, but he still sells 3-8 titles a month. (It's really cool to see the expression of pure joy everytime I should out, "Hey Jakob! You got another sale!" The joys of fatherhood.

    But back to the point, I think Annie answered your question quite sufficiently.

    Best of luck in your Kindle publishing endeavors.

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  • Profile picture of the author mrozlat
    some great answers... i have a better idea now... thanks for all your help
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    • Profile picture of the author LilBlackDress
      Take a look at books in your desired genre.

      Assume 250 words per page.

      Multiply the pages given in the product description by 250.

      There you go....
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  • Profile picture of the author Caden
    It depends on what kind of book you are writing. Fiction is different from non-fiction. Content also plays a factor. Is it a quick fix solution book? Is it a short story? Know how to price right though, seen one crazy person with a book on Kindle that was over seven hundred pages, and they charged 99 cents! Obviously, that person is not aware of IM.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Dalenberg
    I'm only chiming in to boost the good ideas already mentioned.

    Ideally, the book itself, should be short, with the main goal of it to push the reader to an online area containing additional content and helping you to build your list.
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    • Profile picture of the author mrozlat
      Originally Posted by John Dalenberg View Post

      I'm only chiming in to boost the good ideas already mentioned.

      Ideally, the book itself, should be short, with the main goal of it to push the reader to an online area containing additional content and helping you to build your list.
      yeah i've been reading about using kindle books to build a buyers list... although if they get all the information they need... what would make them want to opt-in to an email newsletter?
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  • Profile picture of the author Ofthingsmanmade
    There's no definite answer on how long a Kindle book should be. It's up to you whether or not you publish a tiny book for $0.99 or a longer work for $5.99. However, at the end of the day, what really matters is the content worth. Are you offering enough content to justify a $3.99 price tag? As far as I'm concerned nearly all useful information is worth a dollar regardless of length, so as long as you meet the cutoff, it really doesn't matter.

    Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tommy Turner
    It really depends allot on the topic. A general rule is you want at least 75 to 100 pages, but if your thinking more like a kindle eBook then 50 to 60 pages is good.
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  • Profile picture of the author donhx
    Let me add a slightly different angle. That is, length expectations for nonfiction ebooks are rather low. You should cover your topic, but otherwise keep them as short as possible. The ebooks I write are between 3,000-12,000 words. I sell them from $2.99-$4.99. Based on my experience, I think it is a total waste of time to give them away for free, or sell them for 99 cents in the hopes of getting reviews. If you have something to say, people will buy your ebook.

    I also write paperback nonfiction, and those books are usually 45,000-55,000 words each. When I write them, I plan them as print books. However, I also sell an ebook edition, usually for about half the price of the paperback. At this length they are not designed as ebooks--I just offer them in that format as a convenience to customers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Moneymaker2012
    how longs a piece of string?

    what I mean by that is it depends on a number of factors to give you any kind of answer. You gave us no infomation on what the book is also, so you cant expect anyone to pluck random numbers for you.

    Give us more information, then perhaps we may be able to give you a ball park figure (assuming we get a lot of info)


    if you mean words per page, check other kindle books and take a look.
    I agreed with this.Its not about page quantities its about book content if your book have less pages but effective info then people want to read it but more pages and useless info people want to throw your book into dustbin so choice is yours.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeff Gilbert
      I think length is dependent upon what you're trying to accomplish and where you are coming from and what your end result is.

      Are you a writer? If you're a writer, and you're writing about something you actually want to write about, or you've committed to writing about, coming up with 15K to 20K words for a Kindle book is nothing because you know what you're doing.

      However, Kindle book publishing has multiple aspects and some people are just interested in getting a Kindle book out there to make money, or to promote something else on the backend, or to just try a idea out to see what kind of response it gets and maybe they can expand it.

      In these cases, there are no hard and fast rules. There are people marketing articles on Kindle to get publicity, and those are less than 2,000 words sometimes.

      The big problem that I see with questions about word count these days is that the main reason people ask this question is simply to learn how little can I get away with. It's sort of like saying "can I build a chair with 3 legs or just 2 legs"? Eventually someone will sit on the chair and it will fall. And so does your work.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        I checked the ones on my tablet.

        Damned if every single one of them wasn't the exact same length - about six inches (about three and a half if I turn it sideways)...

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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Ten
    Kindle books should be at least about 2500 words. Although, I have seen ones that are about 1,000 words. However, they are very explicit that they are 1,000 words when they are that short, like it is in the title.

    I do not know if there is a limit to length. However, I own at least one Kindle book that I like a lot that is about 1,200 pages; I own the paperback and hard cover versions too.

    So, length can be quite variable. I hope that helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author kayfrank
    There are plenty of varying lengths of kindle books - as long as you provide what you promise on the cover and description length shouldn't make any difference. People don't buy based on the number of pages they buy because they believe your book can help them.
    As a guide I would say nothing less than 3000 words. As for pages - as already mentioned it depends on the device you read the kindle book on so no. of pages is irrelevant.
    I would use your kindle book as a way to add subscribers to your list and demonstrate your credibility. You can't charge a lot for kindle books so writing a really lengthy in depth one isn't going to help you in terms of revenue.
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