Your manuscript has two different word count totals – the actual number of words written, which is really only of interest to the author, and the typesetting word count. “Word count” is a misleading term used in the publishing industry. What the publisher really wants to know is an estimate of how much space a manuscript will take up when it is printed, and the typesetting word count is a way of standardising this information.

This estimate is the figure the publisher uses to determine whether your manuscript will fit one of their standard book sizes or whether they would have to organise a special (more expensive) print run for your book. You should always give agents and publishers the typesetting word count as it can be a very different figure to the actual word count.

For example, if your protagonist’s name is “Josephine-Elizabeth” and you use her name several times on each page, your book will take up more printing space than it would if you changed her name to “Jo” throughout. However, your word processor will give you the exact same word count.

How to calculate the typesetting word count

The typesetting word count relies on a specific formatting that is approximately 250 words to a page.

Select your entire manuscript and change the font to a monospaced font, like Courier. These are fonts where the letter “m” is the same width as the letter “i”. This also has a great effect on the amount of space used over an entire manuscript.

Make sure your font is set at 12 point and that your manuscript is double-spaced. Set exactly one inch margins all round.

Now pick an average full page and take a full line in the middle of that page.

Count the number of characters in that line (ie, letters or numbers). You can do this quickly with your word processor by highlighting the line and selecting your word count option – it should give you characters with and without spaces, as well as number of words. Use the figure for characters without spaces.

For typesetting, an average word is six characters – so divide the number of characters by six. This gives you the number of “words” per line.

Now count the number of lines on that page. (Or you can place your cursor on the last line of the page and check the line number in the status bar of your screen.)

Multiply the number of words per line by the number of lines per page to get the number of words per page.

Finally, multiply the number of words per page by the number of pages in your manuscript.

Quick guide

- Count characters per line
- Divide by 6
- Count lines per page
- Multiply the two subtotals
- Multiply that figure by the number of pages in your manuscript.

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For more help with preparing your manuscript for submission to an agent or publisher, try Formatting and Submitting Your Manuscript by Cynthia Laufenberg.