Escape Artists
The Lounge at the End of the Universe => The Writing Forum => Topic started by: Heradel on November 06, 2007, 11:38:44 PM
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I know this is stupid and shouldn't really come into the process, but it's been bothering me. About how many book sized pages does one regular letter-sized page (12 point, single spaced, no funky margins) translate to? Is it 1:1 or more like 1:1.5?
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Instead of being a stupid question, I consider this a can of worms question. And here I am, with the first wiggly, juicy worm.
Usually, what works predictively to tell how much space you would be taking up on the printed page within a book is not comparing a screen page or a word processor output page to a book-sized page, but using word count. This is why editors ask for word counts on manuscripts.
In printer speak, as I understand it, word count is not truly a count of words but a character count (six characters per word! Spaces count. As do punctuations marks). Given that, your word processor's word count function is not a true word count from a publisher's point of view.
The most illuminating, concise version of how to get an accurate word count I've ever read comes from here (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/000290.html#1263). All hail Teresa.
However, I just use wc -w and consider that close enough.
Wait, is that my geekitude showing? :-[