How Many Words Is The Average Chapter

When I started pedagogy people how to write their own nonfiction books, I was surprised by how many questions I received about book chapters—specially nearly chapter length.

"How long should a chapter exist?"

"How many chapters do I need?"

"Should my chapters accept sections?"

I was stumped as to why there were and so many questions about chapters, and so an Author made it all articulate:

"I'm but confused and looking for some rules to follow."

Ahh yes. When we're doing something new, it's natural to want guidelines.

Here'due south the trouble: in that location are no "rules" for book chapters.

There are some standard ways of doing things and some conventions that almost Authors follow. But for any "rule" you can find, I tin can testify y'all exceptions that interruption it—and practice information technology well.

That said, information technology'south worth laying out those standards, conventions, and averages, at least as a identify to start.

In this blog post, I'll answer the most common questions virtually chapters, and I'll requite you some bones guidelines to help y'all as yous write your book.

How many capacity should a nonfiction book accept?

Nearly nonfiction books have betwixt five and 20 chapters.

Whatsoever less than 5 and your chapters may be running long or may contain too many ideas.

That said, there are plenty of books with 30 or twoscore capacity. And some books, commonly with very short capacity, can have 50+.

There's no "right" answer to this question.

The standard conventions I'll lay out in this post aren't unbreakable rules written in stone. You should always make your own decisions almost what works for your book.

If you're looking for help structuring your book into parts and chapters, try this outline template as a starting point.

Does affiliate size really matter?

Why does it matter how long your chapters are? Information technology matters because of:

what readers need
what a affiliate is

Understanding what a chapter is can really help when you're deciding how to structure your book.

A chapter is i of the main ways to carve up and separate your book into distinct ideas.

By and large speaking, a single affiliate of a nonfiction book is:

a single cohesive idea, and/or
a footstep in the procedure yous are describing, and/or
a single argument or position

It can be 1 or all of those things.

So, the length of your chapters should be determined past the number of words it takes to nowadays that idea, step, or argument fully, without over explaining it.

So, how long should a affiliate exist?

Rule 1. Short enough, and long enough

If capacity break your book into digestible ideas, the right chapter length comes down to how to present those ideas.

Readers need to grasp the content of your volume and then they can come away with a deep plenty understanding to utilise their new noesis.

Readers also demand to stay interested and then they'll read the whole affair.

Complex ideas might need longer chapters, simply those run the risk of dragging and losing your reader's attention.

Shorter chapters are easier to digest, simply they run the risk of not giving the reader plenty information.

Putting those together, here'due south the first "dominion" of chapter length. A chapter should exist:

Curt enough to hold a reader'southward interest
Long enough to requite that reader what they need

Dominion 2. Shorter is better than longer

I mistake I meet a lot of Authors make is trying to tell the reader everything there is to know about a subject field.

But most readers aren't reading your book out of general curiosity.

They're reading your book to learn how to solve a problem.

Your readers want:

all the data they need to solve that problem
but what they need (and no more)

Authors tend to be smashing at the offset part and lousy at the second. They offer a ton of actress data that might feel interesting to them but doesn't assistance the reader.

Because of that natural tendency, err on the side of short capacity over long capacity. Yous're far better off leaving your readers wanting more than you are boring them.

If they want more, they'll notice you. If you bore them, they'll just walk away.

Rule three. It'due south good to be average

When it comes to chapter word count, it'southward good to exist average.

For ane thing, beingness average meets readers' expectations. If they thumb through your volume and come across capacity that fit their expectations, they'll feel more comfortable most their ability to digest them.

Longer chapters, on the other manus, come with the possibility of turning readers off earlier they even buy the book.

If a reader starts looking through your book on Amazon and that side by side chapter feels like information technology never comes, or if the table of contents presents monstrous xl-page chapters, there's a good take a chance they'll feel intimidated by the content.

If you'd like some guidelines, you can assume that the average nonfiction volume is about 50k words and that most nonfiction books have about 12 chapters.

So around four,000 words would be an "boilerplate" affiliate length.

That number actually lines up pretty well with the data we have on this. But over again, that number should neither exist a goal nor a constraint. Information technology's merely a convention.

But it's a convention that fits within your reader'due south attention bridge.

One thing to remember about boilerplate chapter lengths is that they're driven past:

how much information about readers need to sympathize a expert chapter topic
the average attention span most readers have in absorbing a single idea

Rule 4. The Goldilocks limits

Chapters can be 500 words, or fifty-fifty x,000. It all depends on how much you dive into an idea and how far you become with that idea.

That said, you lot never want your readers to recall:

"That chapter was too short," or
"That affiliate was as well long"

You want your chapters to exist just correct.

Equally a general dominion, if a chapter is under 1,000 words, it might not exist a whole thought or chapter. It might be part of something else. See if it makes more than sense to combine information technology with another affiliate.

If your chapter is more than than 5,000 words, run across if you tin break it into unlike ideas. Maybe you can't, and that'southward okay. Information technology'southward just something to consider.

Only if a chapter is more than than 10,000 words, yous should probably interruption it into two or more capacity.

Remember, books are structured in parts, capacity, and sections.

A function is simply a set of capacity that go together and autumn under a larger idea.

So, if your chapter is more than 10K words, information technology might really be a office, not a chapter. See if you tin break information technology into distinct ideas that would make good chapters.

Rule five. Use chapter breaks wisely

Even the longest affiliate in the world can be a page-turner if it'south structured and formatted well.

Chapter structure is virtually how you employ sections to break upwards your affiliate. A chapter might exist a single idea, only each section should nowadays a coherent piece of that idea.

If you break your capacity into minor enough pieces, readers won't take any problem following them. In fact, they won't even be intimidated if they flip through a long chapter ahead of fourth dimension—as long as they see those breaks.

This is i of the means Authors suspension the "rules" successfully.

Rule 6. Formatting makes a huge divergence

Another manner to make long chapters seem friendlier is to use smart formatting in your book.

Presenting material with charts, graphs, images, headings, bullet points, and other special formatting breaks up all that text and makes the content feel more than manageable to the reader.

But it isn't merely well-nigh how to construction your content. It's about the formatting itself.

Interior book designers use negative space (empty space) to make content feel more approachable.

When it comes to pocket-size, tightly-packed, unvarying text versus loose, flowing text with differentiated headings, the loose, flowing text will win out every fourth dimension.

Your concepts are complex enough as it is. Don't make your readers work harder past laying those concepts out in a way that'southward difficult to accept in. Readers won't buy the volume.

For one thing, they don't want to piece of work harder than they accept to. Just they too won't have much faith in y'all as an Author if your volume looks like you didn't really put the work in.

The right interior layout invites the reader in and makes them feel welcome.
Bad versus good page design side by side

Rule vii. Your chapters don't have to be the same length

In fact, having capacity of like length doesn't matter at all. If ane chapter is 5,000 words, and the adjacent 1,200, and then 3,000, then 1,000, that's completely fine.

It might fifty-fifty exist beneficial. Varying the flow tin brand the volume read better, depending on what you're saying.

It's far more of import to worry about the flow of ideas for the reader than to worry well-nigh any of these chapter guidelines. Your book is written for your reader, so make affiliate decisions based on what makes the all-time volume for them.

Rule viii. In that location are no rules

When you're staring at the first affiliate of the showtime draft of your first volume, it's natural to look for writing advice with hard and fast rules.

Should you apply three,000 discussion chapters or 4,000 word chapters? Where should i chapter end and a new affiliate brainstorm?

Just there'due south no bestseller formula when it comes to affiliate length. At that place simply isn't.

The simply existent rule is to brand your chapters piece of work for your readers.
If readers empathize each chapter, connect the ideas, and period easily from one to the next, that'south all that matters.

A volume'southward construction is never about confining the Author. It'due south almost serving the reader.