How many pages should it be before being considered a book?

[C., Group Creator]

For me it would have to have a minimum of 250 pgs. It would be unlikely for me to even bother reading a pamphlet of less than 100 pgs!

It really irks me when I check the daily list for Kindle freebies and have to slog through so many that are not even 100 pgs! IMO ,it is ridiculous to call those books! :[

[Kristi]

There are official categories that go by word counts. I'm not sure of the exact cutoffs off the top of my head, but I think that anything under 45,000 words is considered a novella.

Figure 250 words per page (industry standard) and that means 180 pages and up is the industry standard for a novel.

My longest book so far is only 240 pages.

There was this whole period of time when it was a thing for "scammers" to put up "scamphlets" as the books you'd find on Kindle Unlimited. Because Amazon was paying authors the same amount per borrow whether the book was 10 pages or 10,000. I think that's where that trend started. (Now they pay per page read, but since they can't tell if a reader actually read it or just skipped to the end there have been even worse scams perpetuated.) But that's probably more info than you bargained for.

The ones I hate most are the short ones that end on a cliffhanger so not only is it short but it's unsatisfying because you have to find the next one and hope the story arc is done after two and that one doesn't end on a cliffy either.

I was going to tell you that I'm putting out the first three in my series as a collection that I've "cleaned up" so I can market it as clean. I'm releasing it July 4th, and you'll be able to ask your library to carry it, if they use Overdrive. :-)

Kindle is saying it's 580 pages, but I think it would be more in print pages. It's something like 180,000 words, which would be +700 pages.

[Lyndsey]

At first I thought 200 or so... But my favorite book of all time I don't think is even 100. My illustrated copy is less than 100.

A short story to me something you read in one sitting.

A book is whatever length it needs to be to tell a good story. Whether that's 100 or 1,000. Some authors like CS Lewis so great because of their use of the language. They can say something in one sentence clearly and illustrate something a lesser author needs 5.

Not to say I don't love long epics. I'm a huge fan of giant epic tails. Ha! Loved pillars of the earth for example. (Not clean! But one of my favorites!)

[Lyndsey]

I guess my point. Tell a great story. When it's done it's done :)

[J.L.]

This is a good question. I must confess, whenever someone refers to my debut short story (The Visitor) as a "book," I cringe because I don't feel it is big enough to earn the title "book" no more than I feel I have yet earned the title "author" (which is another whole topic).

I'm not sure what the exact number of pages is necessary for a story to officially become a "book," but I just know it when I see it.

[[deleted user]]

The number of words makes a novel, not the number of pages. Around 50,000 is considered a full length novel.

[Margaret]

A minimum for novel... maybe 100 pages? Under that it´s novella or short story

[C., Group Creator]

I don't understand how anything under 100 pgs, is allowed to be called a "book" either, which IMO, it most certainly is NOT!

Haha.... yet here I purchased one for my Kindle for $2.99 that is only 66 pgs, all because of the synopsis and that beautiful face/cover! I am actually reading it now.

[Kristi]

C. wrote: "Haha.... yet here I purchased one for my Kindle for $2.99 that is only 66 pgs, all because of the synopsis and that beautiful face! I am actually reading it now.

Then that there is successful niche marketing. :-)

[C.D.]

I don't think there can be a fixed definition based on word count alone. My edition of Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet', is 96 pages long, and what a book it is! I am sure if you think about it, you have read a few good books under 100 pages long ... or short!

[S.T.]

Close to three hundred for me if I am going to buy it. I want to feel some substance to my purchase.

[Christine]

Average novel length is 80,000 words. How many pages that translates to is all determined by the formatting layout: page size, font size, spacing, etc. Eighty thousand words will usually end up between 300-400 pages in print, but when an 80,000-word manuscript comes across my desk for editing, it's a Word document of about 260 pages: font size 12, single-and-a-half spaced. A novella usually comes in between 20,000 and 50,000 words. Under 20,000 words, it's a short story, albeit a long one if it's over 8000.