You don’t have to worry about your Kindle book being too big.
For starters, let’s clear something up: though having a book that’s too long can challenge readers’ attention spans, the size of your Kindle book file isn’t much of an issue. Take the 8 gigabyte (GB) Kindle Fire, which has 6 GB of available space to store e-books. This Kindle device can hold 6,000 books if each e-book file is 1 megabyte (MB). Of course, larger books take up more space than 1 MB. But suffice it to say that you probably don’t have to worry about your finished e-book being too big for readers to download.
Does Kindle have a maximum size for an e-book?
But remember that images, audio, and video take up much more data space than text. For most e-books, images comprise the largest element. For example, a single high-resolution image size can be around 3.5 MB.
For your book cover, Amazon recommends a file size of 40 MB or less. That said, the 650 MB maximum file size applies to your book cover too. Either way, take care when choosing your cover image.
Handling e-books that are over 650 MB
Kindle cannot convert e-book files larger than 650 MB. If your book is over 650 MB, Kindle advises reducing your audio and video content, if applicable. You could also consider publishing your book as a series.
Download speed is rarely an issue.
Can your Kindle book be too short?
Amazon does not set a lower limit when it comes to book length. A short book can satisfy readers as effectively as a long one. In fact, many readers love Kindle Short Reads, which take as little as fifteen minutes to enjoy.
What’s a typical word count for a Kindle book?
Typical word count for any book, whether it’s an e-book or print book, depends on the genre. According to Book Cave, the average nonfiction book runs between 50,000 and 75,000 words. That adds up to about 153 to 230 e-book pages. For fiction, the average book tends to be longer, at 80,000 to 100,000 words. That runs to about 246 to 307 e-book pages.
Children’s books are much shorter.
Middle schoolers have far longer attention spans and stronger reading skills. They can typically handle up to 12,000 words or so. A fiction book for this age group might not have any pictures at all, although a nonfiction book might have fewer words and more illustrations.
By the time children reach adolescence, they are ready for longer books. They’re interested in stories with delightfully tangled plots and complex characters. A young adult novel might run 35,000 to 50,000 words long–around the size of an adult novella.
What size e-book will your Kindle readers expect?
Nonfiction books are typically shorter than fiction books, averaging 50,000 to 75,000 words. Readers don’t usually curl up by the fire to read a cookbook or scientific textbook the way they would a novel. They read nonfiction books for the information and ideas they contain. As long as the facts and concepts are clear, a short book could be as good as a longer one.
That doesn’t mean all nonfiction books are short. If you’re covering a long period of history, writing an in-depth political treatise, or telling a particularly compelling life story, you’ll need more space. On the other hand, if you’re writing a how-to guide on a relatively straightforward topic, brevity is your friend.
Novels are different. Book lovers read fiction to immerse themselves in a narrative—or even a new world. So it’s no surprise the average fiction book runs 80,000–100,000 words. Unless the book is advertised as a novella, an eager book reader might be disappointed if it turns out to be shorter than expected. It takes a certain amount of words for a writer to develop the layered plots and complex characters that make novels so immersive.
Cost + length = the sweet spot
Can a very short novel or novella still tell a gripping story that transports readers? It sure can! But don’t forget to consider that the size of your Kindle e-book can impact what readers are willing to pay. While you could charge as much as $9.99 for a full-length novel, Book Cave claims that novellas priced higher than 5000.99 tend to garner negative reviews.
Why? Because most Kindle users don’t check the word count before making an e-book purchase. If the book proves shorter than expected, readers may feel cheated. Again, that’s often less true for nonfiction books like how-to guides. Since readers see these books as information resources, size isn’t as important. Understanding these nuances is key to marketing your book to the right audience—and ensuring it meets their expectations for length and cost.
Is there a minimum word count for a poetry collection?
Word count usually doesn’t matter for poetry. After all, poems are meant to be read slowly and savored. One poem might have dozens of stanzas. Another might feature ten words and a lot of white space.
So it’s best to measure your poetry collection in pages rather than words. According to Writer’s Relief, a typical poetry collection might be as short as forty-eight pages or as long as ninety-six pages. Many poets publish their poems in the form of a chapbook—a much shorter collection with as few as twenty-four pages.
The perfect size for a graphic novel
Another type of e-book becoming more popular by the day is the graphic novel. According to the Author Learning Center, these can be anywhere from forty-eight to five hundred pages long. Graphic novels usually run far longer than comic books.
Of course, the size of a graphic novel depends on how many pages—or frames—you need to tell the story. But unlike with a regular novel, you might have to consider file size when formatting your graphic novel as a Kindle e-book. Because images take up a lot of space, you’ll need to take care not to exceed the 650 MB maximum.
Size isn’t the most important thing for your Kindle e-book.
Remember the story of Goldilocks? Keep it in mind when you think about the right size for your Kindle book: not too short, not too long, but just right. Your readers will appreciate that you took the time to edit your book to the size it needs to be. Most importantly, they’ll appreciate your well-crafted story, compelling argument, or page-turning biography. When your book’s that good, who’s counting words?
Writing an eBook -how many words and how many pages
idealmike
Lynne
Thanks Mike. I feel the same way about writing. I have something I need to tell so I want to just tell it and not worry about anything else but considering this is the second eBook I am going to be writing I want to do it right and of course it is the first one I am going to sell!
I will just get on with it then, Thank you for your input! Thanks Mike. I feel the same way about writing. I have something I need to tell so I want to just tell it and not worry about anything else but considering this is the second eBook I am going to be writing I want to do it right and of course it is the first one I am going to sell! I will just get on with it then, Thank you for your input!
gelotologist
I agree that it doesn’t really matter on what or how long you write as long as it has a great and strong quality that people would be looking for but if you want to write like 5-10 pages then also go for it because people would notice your hardwork and your efforts on it even if it’s not that interesting. I agree that it doesn’t really matter on what or how long you write as long as it has a great and strong quality that people would be looking for but if you want to write like 5-10 pages then also go for it because people would notice your hardwork and your efforts on it even if it’s not that interesting.
CryptoGuru
Lynne
Thank you! It will be more than 30 pages of content I am sure of it and it wont be like 5 words a page it is about 500 words a page so it will be meaty. not drafty LOL. Thank you! It will be more than 30 pages of content I am sure of it and it wont be like 5 words a page it is about 500 words a page so it will be meaty. not drafty LOL.
hitmeasap
I think my last ebook was about 16,000 words in total. Including the copyright notice and everything. And yeah, you’ve read it Lynne, so you know how I presented everything. I honestly don’t think that I could have done it in any other way than I did, as I wanted to include everything. That being said, I also had a forewords .pdf that was 2000 words. So all in all, about 18,000 words.
However, I could probably have decreased the amount of words and the number of pages if I didn’t used all the images and so on, but I didn’t thought about any of that during the time I wrote it. I wanted it to include everything so it came out the way it did.
I would say that I prefer ebooks to be about 15-20 pages long, but it totally depends on the topic and how many images that are used within the book. It also depends on the size of the font. Many authors seems to believe that they can fill an ebook with tons of information to make it 100+ pages long, and that people will buy it just because of that.. But they are wrong. 100+ pages doesn’t mean it’s a better guide or ebook than a book with 15 pages.
Lynne
Thanks Andre I have one more chapter to do and it is now 19 000 words and 33 pages. This is just the content.
I think this will do just fine Now I just have to finish the last chapter and put it all together and figure out my pricing! Thanks Andre 🙂 I have one more chapter to do and it is now 19 000 words and 33 pages. This is just the content. I think this will do just fine 🙂 Now I just have to finish the last chapter and put it all together and figure out my pricing!
ermini2
Well I’m pretty sure the average novel is 80,000 words but ebooks tend to be in a shorter format, one site compared the length it to an extended essay. So maybe try like a third of what an average novel is in length? So anywhere from 20,000-30,000 words.
OH! what about having a few ebooks. like short ebooks but like 3 or 4. Well I’m pretty sure the average novel is 80,000 words but ebooks tend to be in a shorter format, one site compared the length it to an extended essay. So maybe try like a third of what an average novel is in length? So anywhere from 20,000-30,000 words. OH! what about having a few ebooks. like short ebooks but like 3 or 4.
Table of Contents: How to Write an Ebook Like a Pro (Don’t Do These Amateurish Things)
- Choosing a Topic You Know Little About
- Writing the Ebook Your Audience “Needs”
- Thinking Like a Writer, Not a Publisher
- Picking Up Your Pen (or Laptop) and Starting to Write
- Trying to Make Your Ebook Too Valuable
- Starting at the Beginning
- Only Writing When You Feel Like It
- Letting Your Inner Editor Take the Lead
- Quitting Just Before it Gets Easy
- Trying to Keep Up The Momentum
- Throwing Your Best Work in the Fire
- Reviewing With a Microscope, Not a Telescope
- Telling Yourself You Don’t Need an Editor
- Hiring the World’s Worst Proofreader
- Indulging Your Inner Perfectionist and Procrastinator
- Assuming You Know the Best Format for Your Ebook Already
- Using the First (Yawn-Inducing) Title that Comes to Mind
- Designing Your Own Front Cover
- Forgetting to Link Back to Your Blog
- Completely Ignoring the Power of Social Proof
- Acting Like Your Ebook Isn’t a Big Deal
1. Choosing a Topic You Know Little About
If you know little or nothing about your chosen topic, creating a successful ebook will be a huge amount of work. You’ll have to do a ton of research on Google, interview experts, and perhaps even pay a real guru to get you up to speed.
What to do Instead
Write about something you actually know about — which almost certainly means tying your ebook idea to your blog’s core topic. You’ll not only save a ton of time on research, but you’ll also have a ready-made audience for your writing.
2. Writing the Ebook Your Audience “Needs”
What to do Instead
3. Thinking Like a Writer, Not a Publisher
If you don’t start thinking now about how you’ll sell your book — whether that means selling it to make money or just selling the concept to your readers — you’ll run into problems later on.
What to do Instead
Draft your sales page while you’re planning your ebook. Make it sound as attractive and useful as possible (try Jon’s list of power words, and make the reader the hero of the story) … and use that pitch to drive the writing process. This will make your ebook much stronger and will make your life much easier when you launch it.
4. Picking Up Your Pen (or Laptop) and Starting to Write
Jumping into the writing at this point in your ebook project will cause you serious problems. You’ll find yourself repeating things, or wasting time exploring ultimately unhelpful tangents.
What to do Instead
This means having a clear outline that has, at the very least, each of the chapter headings. Yes, that might seem a bit boring, but it will make the writing stage far easier (and more fun).
This doesn’t have to mean opening a blank Google Doc or Microsoft Word document and writing a linear outline. Try freeform brainstorming, mind maps, or index cards as creative alternatives to help get your ebook ideas flowing.
5. Trying to Make Your Ebook Too Valuable
Chances are, you won’t write just one ebook. You might write several in the same series, or you might create a short starter ebook for free, and then write a more advanced one to sell.
What to do Instead
Go back to your survey and determine what aspects your audience cares about the most. Focus on those. If you have lots of extra ideas, great! Keep them in a separate place and use them for your next ebook. Or explore them in a detailed blog post.
6. Starting at the Beginning
If you start with the introduction, you’ll often end up writing far more than you need to. And let’s be honest. No reader relishes the sight of a long introduction — they want to dive into the real content.
What to do Instead
Also, a lot of “introductory” material can go at the back of the book – I strongly recommend having an About the Author page at the back, because it’s a great opportunity to point readers to your website, mailing list, and so on.
7. Only Writing When You Feel Like It
But if you don’t write consistently, you’ll never build up any momentum. You may write for a few hours to begin with, but then end up taking weeks off … and never getting back to your ebook.
What to do Instead
Find a consistent time each day, or several times a week, to work on your ebook. You might like to try the Pomodoro technique (25 minutes writing, 5-minute break) to use your time effectively during short writing sessions. Anyone can write for just 25 minutes.
8. Letting Your Inner Editor Take the Lead
What to do Instead
You might find it’s helpful to use a full-screen “no distractions” text editor. I like Dark Room for this — as it doesn’t have those distracting red and green wiggles that your typical word processor adds when it doesn’t like a word or phrase.
Resource:
https://eliteauthors.com/blog/the-average-size-of-a-kindle-e-book/
https://listingdock.com/faq/656/Writing-an-eBook-how-many-words-and-how-many-pages
https://smartblogger.com/ebook-mistakes/