For many new and aspiring authors, this is a recurring thought and question. "I want to write a book or turn my idea into a book but how long will it take?"
The answer is: it depends!
I am sorry, nobody likes that answer, I know. So we will just go by averages and rough schedules instead. I don't want to bring you all this way and leave you with nothing!
Average Time To Write A Book: What Does "It Depend" On?
- Wordcount
How many words you intend for your book to have. This is a better length measurement than page-count, as 100 pages of an 8.27" by 11.69" (A4) book, would be a few hundred pages of a 6" by 9" book! Similarly, things like the font you choose and the size of the font will determine your total page-count. - Writing Schedule
How often you will be writing towards this wordcount and adding to your book. Will you write every day? Will you take weekends off etc. These will play a role in how fast you can get the book written. - Word Target
In addition to having a writing schedule. Setting a word target and sticking to it will help you with both actually achieving your goal and also understanding how long the writing process will take. If you set a 2,000-word target and wrote 5 days a week, you would obviously achieve writing your book faster than you would with a 1,000-word target, writing 3 days a week.
The Average Time It Takes To Write A Book Depends On Your Consistency
As you can see, the only way to determine how long it will take to write your book is to create a schedule and stick to it. For example, if you are writing a 60,000-word book, have set yourself a work schedule of 5 days a week, Monday to Friday, writing 1500-2000 words. As this works out at 30-40 days of writing, you would have hit your target of 60,000 words in 6-8 weeks.
Whereas, if you fall off of that schedule and end up only writing 3 days a week, this will take you 10-14 weeks to complete.
To work out the average time it will take you, simply adjust your word-count goals and set a schedule and target you can commit to, but ultimately remember...
CONSISTENCY IS KEY!
This is also a very basic way of looking at writing a book because if your target is to have a 60,000 book on the shelf, this would require you to have written considerably more in your draft. It is also important to note that writing a good quality book is about more than just the word count, and if you really want to write a good, successful book (which I assume is also the aim here), you would be considering drafts, final drafts, editing, proofreading, beta readers etc.
🌟 5 Useful Tips For Writing Your Book
These tips should help you streamline the process a bit better and keep you on track. This will enable you to complete your book in the best time, without procrastinating but also enable you to cover all of your tracks and not rush the process.
- Join writers groups and forums.
Other writers have the experience and have great niche advice specific to what you want to achieve. They also help to keep you on track and hold you accountable indirectly. - Find beta readers in advance.
You could have people reading and providing you with feedback chapter by chapter, as you write. Not only does this save time but you can adjust each chapter based on the feedback. You will find that people have more time to spare when required to read a single chapter or two at a time rather than an entire book. - Use Grammarly to check your writing as you go.
The basic, free version offers spelling and grammar checks while the premium version offers suggestions and gives you feedback on your tone, choice of words etc. Grammarly could actually save you money on hiring an editor or proofreader and thus save you time. - Use a story planner.
There are some great apps, such as Plot Factory that allow you to plan your entire story, characters and world. Once you have done this and have the skeleton to your book you will have no trouble staying on track and flowing smoothly into each chapter. - Design a schedule that fits your lifestyle.
There is no point in creating a schedule that says you must write 5,000 words 7-days a week if you know you work 12-hour shifts each day. You might be able to keep that up for a week but realistically you will burn-out fast, lose interest and frankly start writing a bunch of junk! To avoid things like writer's block occurring and you not completing the book, it is best to set shorter more obtainable and easy to manage writing goals.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, when taking all of these things into consideration, it is impossible to truly have an 'average' time frame but I hope this post has provided some light on your initial question. At the very least you have more to think about surrounding your idea, setting a schedule and looking into the other things mentioned.
