What is the average page or word count for a Chapter?
Is there a number I should be using for minimum or maximum?
What is the average page or word count for a Chapter?
Is there a number I should be using for minimum or maximum?
page or word count for a Chapter?
Is there a number I should be using for minimum or maximum?
On SOL, or dead tree?
Dead tree, it varies from one genre to another. And while there are statistics out there for average book length by genre, I've never seen stats for chapter lengths.
On SOL, the difference between the shortest and longest chapters is so high, I'm not sure that the average (mean) would be meaningful.
The shortest story (poem really) on SOL is a mere 150 words.
Of the three longest stories on SOL:
Arlene and Jeff: 4,168,672 words, 839 chapters, average chapter length is 4,969 words.
Six Times A Day: 4,118,666 Words, 153 chapters, average chapter length 26,919 words.
Three Square Meals: 3,838,202 Words, 142 chapters, average chapter length 27,030 words.
The median would be more meaningful, but I think you'd really be looking for the mode (the mode of a set of values is the value that occurs with the highest frequency).
Of the set above of the 3 longest stories, The mean chapter length is 19,639 words and the median chapter length is 26,919 words. With no repeated values, there is no mode.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mode.asp
It would probably take access to the back end database (that only Lazeez has) to generate any statistics for chapter length on SOL across all stories.
Not sure what 'Dead Tree' even is.
I meant on SOL.
Trying to figure out how short or long to make my chapters for when I put on Bookapy
what 'Dead Tree' even is.
Actual real and printed books on paper - which comes from dead trees ...
Not sure what 'Dead Tree' even is.
It's traditional publishing, like the books you buy from Penguin at a bookstore.
So if you want your self-published book on Bookapy to look like a traditionally published book, you should take note of the way they do it. If not, do it anyway you want.
As to chapter length, there are no rules.
Mine tend on average to be between 7 and 12 pages using a word processor with New Times Roman and a 12 pitch font. And that may go up or down, depending on font and pitch used.
But that is only a general guide, and try to put the chapter breaks at appropriate places. I have had some run up over 20 pages, and yet at least once it was not even a full page.
And one recently I decided to actually play with this, and each of the 5 chapters was exactly 7 pages long.
I think it is more important that they be in the proper places than just on an arbitrary thing like page or word counts.
Using Microsoft Word, and now LibreOffice, I tend to have 6 to 12 pages (single-spaced, with a "blank" line between paragraphs or dialog; also including Chapter Title (possibly Sub-Title) and Author with spaces between each. Some Chapters may have a "sub titled" sub chapter(s).
8,000 to 12,000 words.
Most Important: 55,000 characters otherwise the chapter will have an "automatic" 2nd page.
I prefer each chapter to be just a single page. If it is going to be larger, I prefer to create a multiple chapters at My Chosen break points, not a break chosen by an algorithm
Most Important: 55,000 characters otherwise the chapter will have an "automatic" 2nd page.
IIRC: Due to improvements in the servers and bandwidth, the automatic pagination of long chapters has been turned off.
Due to improvements in the servers and bandwidth, the automatic pagination of long chapters has been turned off.
Apparently I haven't been keeping up with current events 🙃