Chapter length calculator

There is no set length. Chapters end where a scene or a turn in the story ends, so they vary within one book. This calculator gives you an average to plan with, and shows what a chosen length means in printed pages and reading time.

Divide your word count by the chapter length you like to write. At 4,000 words a chapter, an 80,000 word book has 20 chapters. Switch to Chapter length mode and the calculator does this for you.

It depends on the trim, font and spacing. At 3,200 words, a chapter is about 10.4 printed pages at 6 x 9 in and about 15.5 at 5 x 8 in, with the same 11 pt Garamond. In a double spaced manuscript it is about 12.6 pages.

Each chapter opens part way down its first page and its last page usually runs short. We add 0.8 of a page per chapter for that. Starting every chapter on a right-hand page adds a blank left-hand page about half the time, another 0.5 of a page on average.

A meta-analysis of reading studies by Marc Brysbaert (2019) puts the average adult silent reading rate at 260 words a minute for fiction and 238 for non-fiction. At 260, a 3,200 word chapter takes about 12 min. Fast and slow readers differ a lot.

It is where each chapter would begin if every chapter had the same length, counting front matter before chapter one. Real chapters vary, so use it for a rough page map, not for a table of contents.