Advice from Professional Ghostwriter Thomas Hauck
I cannot tell you how often I see ghostwriting or book editing job postings that say, “I need a 200-page book about how to lose weight,” or “My book is 150 pages and I need it to be edited. How much will it cost?”
Clients and prospective authors should understand that when you’re writing a book, the page count, especially on a Word document, is completely meaningless. All that matters is the word count.
Why?
Because the page count can be easily manipulated up or down. Let’s say you have a section of text that’s 500 words. Here are two options for the page formatting:
- A big font with lots of space. This might give you 20 lines of text per page, with an average of 10 words per line. This means that you’ll get 200 words per page. Therefore 500 words will fit on 2.5 pages.
- A tiny font with narrow spaces between lines. This might yield 35 lines per page and 15 words per line. You’ll get 525 words per page. Your 500 words of text will fit on one page with room to spare.
To prove the point, go to any bookstore and choose a Tolstoy novel in paperback. You’ll see it’s printed in small type with lots of words crammed onto each page. This is because it’s cheaper to print a fat Tolstoy novel using fewer pages. Then find a copy of “Who Moved My Cheese?”, the best selling business book. It’s printed in a big 14-point type with 25 lines per page. It’s a very short book that’s been “plumped up” to feel good in your hand.
The lesson for the client is to never use page count as a delivery guide. Always use the word count. If you say, “Write me a 200-page book,” you have no way to measure how much has been written and delivered to you. But if you set a target of 30,000 or 60,000 words for your book, you’ll know for sure if your ghostwriter is delivering.
- Thomas Hauck is a leading professional ghostwriter and book editor. For your free consultation, contact Thomas today.