An Important Note About Kindle & CreateSpace Books

[Nyssa]

Covers like this ?

[[deleted user]]

Hm, no, but those are the Amazon releases of Gutenberg books, and I think they are all free, so in this case it's a screencap option. Which stinks, but at least we have that option.

[Nyssa]

Christa wrote: "Hm, no, but those are the Amazon releases of Gutenberg books, and I think they are all free, so in this case it's a screencap option. Which stinks, but at least we have that option."

Ugh! I may just switch to an already established edition. I really don't have the skill, desire or time to fool around with "making" covers.

Thanks for the info. :)

[Jessica]

Now that all of the data for Kindle books has been wiped, I'm curious about page counts for them. Before we had what Amazon provided, which while not always accurate was at least ballpark. However, now they have 0 pages, and I'm not sure if it's OK to update them even if I have it on my Kindle since I can't verify if the count varies across different Kindle styles. I just gave the Cloud Reader a whirl and it lists no count at all that I can find.

I hate to leave them at 0 since they obviously do have a count of some kind, but I can see a lot of back and forth happening between librarians if their devices give different counts - for example, I'm currently reading a Kindle edition given as 332 pages on my device, but someone else updated the record for that one as having 462 pages. What's a best-practice-seeking librarian to do?

[Cindy]

Jessica - the Kindle page counts are the same no matter which Kindle device or settings you are using. The page numbers are pegged to a print version, not to what you see on the screen if that makes sense? I've been going by what my device says unless I hear otherwise around here.

[Nyssa]

I've also been using my device info for page counts.

[Sarah (Presto agitato)]

Nyssa wrote: "Covers like this?"

For that type I've been making the covers from screen captures from books I have on the Kindle Cloud Reader. It's kind of a pain, but actually easy to do.

[Jessica]

Excellent - I knew that the page count on my Kindle didn't vary if I messed with font settings and such, but wasn't sure if the different versions of the Kindle presented different counts because their screen sizes are different. After reading the info in the librarian manual raising this as a possible issue for ebooks generally, I figured I'd rather ask first before I go stomp all over some poor fellow librarian's edit. :)

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Jessica wrote: "Excellent - I knew that the page count on my Kindle didn't vary if I messed with font settings and such, but wasn't sure if the different versions of the Kindle presented different counts because t..."

Rivka (I think) once told me that there is a standard amount of words per page (and that number escapes me right now, sorry). If you can't find a page count you can take the word count and divide by the standard number of words per page.


And I'm hoping some smart person comes behind me and supplies that standard number.... :-D

[rivka, Former Moderator]

It's not a "standard", really. It's an estimated average. I got it from somewhere that escapes me at the moment. (As does the number.)

[Robin]

MrsJoseph wrote: "Rivka (I think) once told me that there is a standard amount of words per page (and that number escapes me right now, sorry). If you can't find a page count you can take the word count and divide by the standard number of words per page. "

There is no standard amount of words per page since books can come in all different page sizes and text sizes so it varies by book. But I think the average number is around 250.

[Dee]

250 to 350 is the numbers I have seen as a standard...250 for a MMPB type book

[rivka, Former Moderator]

250 has the additional advantage of being 1/4 of 1000, so it makes the math simple.

[Moira]

rivka wrote: "It's not a "standard", really. It's an estimated average. I got it from somewhere that escapes me at the moment. (As does the number.)"

250 words per typed page is the usual way of estimating manuscript length based on typewritten Courier font, which takes spaces into account as well as words, which modern computerized wordcounts don't. I have never heard of estimated manuscript length being applied to published books.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Moira wrote: "I have never heard of estimated manuscript length being applied to published books."

Including ebooks? I have definitely seen sites that assign ebooks "page number counts" based solely on actual wordcount.

[Moira]

rivka wrote: "Moira wrote: "I have never heard of estimated manuscript length being applied to published books."

No, my point is, the 250-words-per-page count is based on typed manuscripts, which were in fixed Courier font and included spacing. This is often used by publishers even nowadays when designing books, because hard copy books have fixed spacing, unlike ebooks.

I have definitely seen sites that assign ebooks "page number counts" based solely on actual wordcount.

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I don't recall if the divisor they use is 250 or something else, but they take known word counts and convert them to "page counts" by dividing by an estimated/averaged number of words per page.

[Moira]

...."they" who?

I really don't understand what you are trying to get at here, and frankly, given that you are apparently in charge of answering the questions caused by the very confusing and upsetting changes since GoodReads decided not to use Amazon data, you're about to drive me off the site for good.

[Charming]

Moira wrote: "...."they" who?

I really don't understand what you are trying to get at here, "

It is a common question: "how many words per page in a standard novel?" or how many pages does this word count translate into?" Per Google, 250 seems to be the most common answer. See for example here, here, or here

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Moira, this particular aspect of the discussion really has nothing to do with the change from Amazon, and is a tangent relating back to previous discussions about determining page count for ebooks when an official count does not exist.

I apologize for any confusion or upset I may have caused.

[Dee]

also with a lot of ebooks, the words per page are based off of the pdf pages/words - so they are more likely to have more words to a page, than a standard MMPB...I just had a ebook where the publisher listed it as 100 pages...when I opened it up, I found that was because they have increased the font size in the pdf to space it out

[♥ Marlene♥]

I was checking in cause I see so many kindle books with 0 pages and I am someone who wants to know how many pages I've read per year. The thing is even when we still had the pages amount a lot of times it did not match at all with the amount on my kindle. (Mostly my pages were way less)

Also if I compare the pages a hard cover has with my kindle it is also does not match up.
Well I can just add the numbers I see on my kindle or will I use the pages of the hardback? I hate seeing 0 pages.

[Dee]

I honestly track my pages read per year in a spreadsheet, if an ebook I read has 0 listed, I check the publisher/fictionwise etc for a word count (if there is no print available), and then base my page count on 250 wpp...although at one stage I was tracking formatting by publisher - stopped doing that though

[Robin]

Moira wrote: "...."they" who?

I really don't understand what you are trying to get at here, and frankly, given that you are apparently in charge of answering the questions caused by the very confusing and upsetting changes since GoodReads decided not to use Amazon data, you're about to drive me off the site for good. "

Wow, that's a bit extreme - do you storm off from every website when you have an irrelevant side debate with someone? Don't you think your comments are a bit harsh and unnecessary? It was just a little side discussion on word count, there's no reason to take it personally and certainly no reason to personally attack a mod. Sounds like you're just frustrated with the changes and taking it out on rivka.

[Alessandra]

Is it too early to offer hugs all around to everyone who's been dealing with this?

[Brenda]

Never too early for hugs Alessandra;D

[Bonnie]

For some reason, even w/ over 700 books on my Goodreads list, I only needed to rescue 2 (so far!). Best outcome: I joined the Librarians group (always wanted to be one). When I'm manic (diagnosed) or have my OCD cap on, I'm exceptionally careful, go after as much detail as I have and lose all track of time (both day and night). A project manager's dream for effective productivity. Did I mention we have a quality personal library (just "culled again") of about 5,000 books I can access for old books, hard-to-find editions, etc.

Boy, am I looking forward to this assignment.

[Beth]

Bonnie wrote: "For some reason, even w/ over 700 books on my Goodreads list, I only needed to rescue 2 (so far!). Best outcome: I joined the Librarians group (always wanted to be one). When I'm manic (diagnose..."

Boy, are YOU in the right place. ::grin::

[Bonnie]

Beth wrote: "Bonnie wrote: "For some reason, even w/ over 700 books on my Goodreads list, I only needed to rescue 2 (so far!). Best outcome: I joined the Librarians group (always wanted to be one). When I'm ..."

Thanks. I was pretty sure I could be helpful on this one. Books are my first love after my husband of 37 years.