When you are just getting started with producing a book, it is very unlikely for you to determine the required minimum amount of words for paperback books. Take a look at these few tips that will help you determine the best length.
Before I answer today's question, I want to let you know that there are 3 answers to this question. The third answer is a secret to the correct number of words. To make as much money as possible from your books.
Let's get into it. Today's question that was sent in was, what is the minimum amount of words for paperback books?
This is an outstanding question. Because it shows that you've decided you're not just going to stick with your Kindle books. And maybe you have a short one, but you don't want to waste a lot of time learning how to format books.
If the book is underneath that lower level, on that, it is required to get your book on a platform. So that's not just on Kindle but other platforms as well.
So that is a very good question. Also, it's very frustrating for people. Because many self-publishers when they first get started with self-publishing, they are also trying to consider how many pages do they need to write and the minimum amount of words for paperbacks.
Do I need to write a thousand pages? Do I need to write a hundred pages? How long it needs to be? What is the best length?
And then, how many words? Are there minimum words for paperback books? How does this translate out to the number of words I'm going to need to write? So, that makes it pretty tough.
Check out my Self-Publishing Secrets Checklist if you would like to see exactly where to get started. Even if you have self-published there may be some steps in there that you're missing. You should check it out, it's free.
So let's get started. When I first started self-publishing, I started writing a book. I've heard that the magic number was 15,000 words. So that's the ideal number of words or the minimum words for paperback books.
So, I put out a book, I think it was 10,000 to 15,000 words and in my next book, it was like 20,000 to 25,000. I put out some different sizes without knowing the minimum amount of words for paperback books. I tested different links.
What I discovered was that some of my longer books were not making as much money as my shorter books. When I put it into Excel and graph out the results, I was completely blown away.
It is one of the reasons why we want to watch the figures. But what exactly is that correct link? What link should we put our books at?
When playing around with the different tools, I use Jutoh to do the formatting. Since it's the best tool on the market to format your books.
It makes it very easy to see exactly how many pages and how to make the adjustments to ensure that your book is going to meet that minimum length or the minimum words for paperback books.
Superiority Of Jutoh
Let's get right on into the answers. The first thing is we need a book to be about 24 or 25 pages in length. That is if we're going to put it on to Amazon paperback publishing.
So if you're going to get it on Amazon Print, you're going to need to have it. And what exactly these 24 pages? Well, it depends upon the font size.
I like to use 12 and 13 Georgia, that's the font size that I use. That's the one that I use within Jutoh when I'm formatting my books.
And I am shooting for a link of a minimum of 3000 words. That you might be thinking that only makes it just this little teeny book, right? We'll get back into that in just a little bit.
But you are correct it's not a very long book. If you're telling somebody a short story or maybe have some poems or maybe you're telling somebody how to solve a specific problem that they have, that even a very short book can be better for them. Than overwhelming them with a massively long book.
So that's something to keep in mind. Though some people complaining and leave one-star reviews if they feel the book is too short. So you might warn them as well, that's also an option.
The second thing is if you choose to take a book that's under 100 pages, generally speaking, you won't really have a binding on the backside. So that's something else to consider when you're doing the paperbacks.
The other thing with paperbacks that is important is to make sure you do have your Table Of Contents in there with the right pages. That was the part when I first started, I tried Scribner.
And I found that that program did not work for my needs, so I got my money back. They refunded the money because it wasn't able to do the Table Of Contents as I liked it to do.
That was when I went over to Jutoh. It is a far superior way of formatting your paperback books as well as your Kindle books. So you can do both of them in the very same tool.
My hardback book, Ingram Spark, all of these books. It's just a wonderful way of going about doing that.
So let's get into today's secret answer which is answer number three. And the answer is, I have earned a lot more money on the books that are 3000 words. That's just the fact, if you're referring to the minimum amount of words for paperback books.
Check out this related article: Are There Self Publishing Success Stories?
So in other words 3000 words, you also have a Disclaimer and you have your Introduction and these sorts of things that are coming into there. And that makes it up to 24 or 25 pages.
I was blown away, I assume people would want to read longer books. Other people on the market tell you your book should be 30,000 words or more. Now, they've got their opinions and their points.
If you order through their companies and stuff, they do make more money from that. But I found that based upon the cost it takes me to make it to create a 3000-word book.
The Market Arena
I'm choosing only highly targeted keywords using Kindle Spy. That's the tool that I used to figure out the competition of those keywords that I'm targeting. Whether there are very few books on the market.
So there's a very hungry audience, very few books in a market and a lot of people who are searching and buying those few books. Coming into those markets with 3,000-word books, with covers that look very similar in good descriptions.
It makes it pretty easy to compete with some of the big-name people. Getting onto the first page of Amazon for these books. And then these books start to sell.
I have another secret, this is like my additional and your bonus secret for today. It's that when you bundle these smaller books together, these 3,000 3,000 3,000, well now, we're at a 12,000-page book.
Let's say we have books A, B, C, and D. You can bundle A and B together, then you can bundle the B and C and you go ABCD. It's not violating any terms at all.
And all of them have their own covers. That means for the price you pay to get 4 of these books produced, you're going to get 7 books out of them.
Then when you have them in paperback like you are asking about and that is the reason never under 3000 words. Then next step is we'll get them to an audio format and we continue the game.
That was just something that I found to be incredibly effective. There are a lot of people who disagree with me on this one.
I just look at the data. I'm a data analyst. What can I say?
I look at the data and the data tells me, on my books, my high keyword-targeted books, I make more money when I am focusing on getting those books to be around 3,000 words which I can say is the best length.
Check out this related article: Is it wise to set a deadline when deciding on publishing a book?
So, that's mine. What about you? What have you found?
Have you found that longer books are better for you? Have you made more sales? Have you actually look to see the cost that you pay versus the royalties you're getting back on longer books?
I hope you found this answer helpful to you. Let me know what you've found below and you can check out my other blogs and videos that answer questions just like this one.