Tools › Page count
How many pages will my book have?
Enter the word count, the trim size and the text size, and get the printed page count, estimated from measured words per page rather than a rule of thumb. You need it early: the gutter, the spine and the printing cost all depend on it. It runs in your browser; nothing is sent.
How the estimate works
Most page-count calculators divide by a fixed 250 or 300 words per page. That number depends on the trim, the text size, the margins and the font, so I measured it instead. Kernsetzer set two sample texts at every trim and text size in the calculator: one with all its paragraphs, short lines of dialogue included, and one with only the long paragraphs, as in non-fiction. The words per page come from those runs, with the Classic theme, its margins and its font, Libertinus Serif.
Chapters count too. Each one starts on a new page, a little way down, and its last page is usually only partly full. In the measurements that came to about one and a half pages per chapter, so a book of 40 short chapters runs longer than the same words in 15.
Words per page at 11 pt
| Trim | Fiction | Non-fiction |
|---|---|---|
| 5 × 8 in | 320 | 334 |
| 5.25 × 8 in | 330 | 349 |
| 5.5 × 8.5 in | 367 | 390 |
| 6 × 9 in | 401 | 435 |
At 10 pt a page holds about a fifth more, at 12 pt about an eighth less. German needs about 15% more pages than English for the same number of words, because German words are longer. An 80,000-word novel in 25 chapters comes to about 294 pages in 5 × 8 in and 244 in 6 × 9 in. At KDP’s US printing cost for black ink of 1.2 cents a page, those 50 pages cost you 60 cents a copy.
How far to trust it
Take the result as within about 10% either way, which is the range the calculator shows. A wider-set font such as Georgia, bigger margins or a looser line spacing push the count up; a tighter font pushes it down. Pictures, tables, poems and part title pages aren’t in the estimate at all. Once the book is typeset you know the real number, and that is the one to give KDP and your cover designer.
What the number decides
The page count sets KDP’s minimum gutter, the spine width and the cover size, and the KDP margin calculator works all three out from it. The guide to choosing a trim size goes through which size suits which book. Kernsetzer shows the real page count as you change the trim and the text size, and adjusts the margins to it. Sign up for the beta.