Is 25000 words enough for a book?

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Is 25000 Words Enough For A Book?

It depends on the type of book you want to write.

A novel will typically be 80,000-100,000 words, so 25,000 words would be less than half of that. If you are writing a novel, then no, 25,000 words are not enough words.

However, if you're writing a short story collection or a non-fiction book, 25,000 words may be enough. Ultimately it's up to you, what you feel comfortable with and what type of message, and genre. If you have a great story to tell and you're confident in your ability to tell it well, then go for it!

25,000 words is by no means a hard limit. If you want to up the word count a little, you will be in the territory of Novella. Writing more than 25,000 words does not need to be a huge task, either!

I recommend you use the book completion calculator to workout how many words per day you would need to write to complete a slightly longer book. You will probably find that spread out over the course of a month or two, the extra words aren't all that big a deal!

Average Book Word Length Based On Genre (Under 25,000)

There are a variety of factors that can affect the average word length of a book, such as genre and intended audience. For example, books aimed at young children tend to have shorter words and sentences, while books intended for adults can be more complex.

The chart below provides some general guidelines for average book word lengths based on genre. As you can see, there is a wide range in the average word lengths of different genres, from under 1000 words for flash fiction to nearly 200,000 words for an epic fantasy novel.

Genre (Fiction)Avg Wordcount Range
Early Readers200 - 3,500 words
Children's Picture Books300 - 800 words
Flash Fiction Stories500 - 1000 words
Short Story1,000 - 7,500 words
Early Chapter Books4,000 - 10,000 words.
Middle-Grade Fiction25,000 - 40,000 words.
Average Book Word Length For Fiction (under 25,000)

Of course, there are always exceptions to these averages, but this gives you a general idea of the expected word count for each type of book.

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