How Many Chapters does the Average Book Have?
The number of chapters an average book has depends upon the projected length of the completed novel and the book’s genre. As an author, you must first decide how long a book you plan to write. If you are not sure, look at other books in the genre of interest, such as mystery, romance, science fiction, and see how long the average book runs in that particular genre or category. If you are not writing for a particular genre, read mainstream books similar to your own to get a general idea of what major publishers consider a suitable length for the entire novel. It helps to diagram a few published novels similar to your own by jotting down the number of chapters they have and the number of pages and word count of each chapter, just to get an idea of what some of the publishers you may target have been accepting. What is the Ideal Chapter Length? An average book runs about 65,000 words or around 260 double-spaced manuscript pages. These can be divided into roughly equal chapters of eighteen