Do 17

[Dénes Bernád]

Off topic. It's interesting to see the word count of specialised aviation books. I never saw this before (true, I didn't look expressly for it).

The current word count of my Bulgarian book project exceeds 210.000. Compared this to the previous post, I kind of "overkilled" it, I guess.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

Off topic. It's interesting to see the word count of specialised aviation books. I never saw this before (true, I didn't look expressly for it).

I think you are a very lucky author not to be constantly reminded about the word count by your publisher! As far as I know, a book in the Osprey or Classic Colours series would be around 30,000 words; a 200-page, A4-size book could be 80,000 words (but a lot depends on the layout and the size/number of illustrations). I do remember that "Air War Italy 1944–45" was supposed to be 105,000 and the first draft came out at 150,000; we finally got it down to around 110,000, I think.

[Dénes Bernád]

Thanks for the answers.
I will ask the publisher if reducing font size would be an acceptable solution to this "issue".

[Col Bruggy]

Hello,

Font size won't alter the word count!

Col.

[Dénes Bernád]

I know, but it would decrease page count (currently at 600+), thus printing costs.

[Chris Goss]

Trouble with reducing font size is text isn't pleasing on the eye & publishers don't like that. I am helping a chap who wrote a 160000 word book with no more than 30 photos. No publisher was interested. I managed to reduce it to 80000 words for him but still no interest not helped by lack of photos. It is a fine balance but photos help considerably.

[Dénes Bernád]

Chris, as for photos, I would go as far as to say that more than 90% of the buyers don't actually read the main text, but rather look at the illustrations and, perhaps, read the captions. Therefore, proper, abundant illustration is paramount to the (commercial) success of niche market books like ours are.

[edwest2]

Yes, it would begin to cut pages. Just make sure the font is still readable at the chosen/desired size.




Best,
Ed