How Many Words Would a Wordchuck Chuck if a Wordchuck Would Chuck Words?

When I first started writing, I set a goal of 1,000 words a day. It was an arbitrary goal – I had no idea how much I should be writing to be a “real writer.” 

So I sat down to figure it out. 

Everyone’s got their own writing pace. Some authors write 10 books a year, others write three books a year, and some write one book every six years (see previous post re: George R.R. Martin). Let’s do some math together so we can break down what that means in terms of daily writing targets. For the purposes of this example, let's use round numbers. In reality, book length and word count varies quite a bit, especially by genre.

Let’s say standard novel is approximately 80,000-100,000 words (Google Search:“How Long Should My Novel Be?”) .

A page is anywhere from 250-300 words, depending on font and page size. So at the high end, that’s a 333 page book — or using the 5,000 words/chapter metric — about 20 chapters. (source: “On Writing Romance” by Leigh Michaels).

If you’re writing 1,000 words a day, that’s 100 days, or a little over 3 months just to finish writing the first draft of the damn thing. 

(This first draft is perfect and could not be improved in any way.)

Then you’ve got to edit this sucker. If you’re really good and editing as you go, my guess is you could probably get feedback and edits from writing groups, critique partners, friends and family within a week and then spend a week editing. If you’re not as good, it could take 1-2 months. Then once you’re feeling confident enough to send your little baby off to it’s first day at school, you’re probably going to submit to publishers.

Now, this process is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book: You could self-publish (which means you need to hire a freelance editor), you could try to get an agent and then submit to major publishing houses through them (so you’ll need to submit to agents), you could just submit directly to the publishers and then hope THEY get you an agent… or you might get bitten by a snake and die, because that's always an option. Choose carefully.

(Just like in real life! Wait...)

Best case scenario, you’re already a published author, so you submit your half-assed 30th novel to Harlequin (one of the "Big 6" romance publishers) and your beleaguered editor is like, “Did you even use spellcheck,” and they do all the grunt work for you and send it back, slashed to bits. You take all their edits and suggestions, because you’re just collecting a paycheck and authorial integrity disappeared after your books started making their way into the grocery store paperback aisle (don’t mistake me here — this is the fucking DREAM). So the editing process takes less than a month, they design a generic watercolor cover with your name in giant foil print on it, get a few bullshit pull quotes from other authors they represent in your genre, “… very readable, quick-paced, contains characters and plot…”, and voila, your newest NYT Bestselling Novel hits shelves at #37 in under four months turnaround time.

(This gem from Google search: "Worst Romance Covers," but also my personal 2017 winner of "Best Costume Design"). 

That’s at 1,000 words a day.

Then you have authors like Michael Crighton (author of "Jurassic Park" and some other less-good books), who claims to write 10,000 words a day. I’m not kidding. He says this takes anywhere from 3-10 hours. MATH: at this fastest, he’s writing 55 words per minute for 3 hours straight. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DIFFICULT THAT IS?!

("Writers uh... find a way.")

No? Because at first I thought: hey, that sounds totally reasonable. I mean, we've all been there: when you're really pissed at a coworker or a significant other, you can sit down and write the email sequel to “War & Peace” in about an hour. (Chapters 1-89: “Why You Are Wrong.”)

But we can't always rely on the intoxicating fuel of self-righteousness to boost our productivity.

According to the Internet, the average typing speed of an average human is 40 wpm. Professional typists clock in at 65-70 wpm. So 55 wpm is entirely do-able… this guy has been writing his entire life for his career, so it stands to reason that he types very quickly. 

But I was still skeptical, so I did science! The purpose of my airtight, super-accurate study was to figure out if Michael Crighton is the human embodiment of a multi-armed Hindu god, or if 55 wpm is a goal any writer can attain. 

Now, I know I am a fast typer. The reason is because when I was a wee lass, I skipped recess so I could practice playing TyperShark in the computer lab (as you've probably guessed, I was really cool and athletic as a child). In my small pool of people I went to grade school with, I know of three people who are faster typers than me. They’re all women, and they’re also all better at Scrabble than me, which is why you absolutely should not fuck with a fast-typing woman or else they’ll OWN your ass at Scrabble.

It’s been over 20 years since I played TyperShark, but in our glorious modern times you can easily measure your typing speed online. Here was my first attempt. 

Not the best accuracy, but it called me an Octopus and they're smarter than most Americans and even some cats! Can I beat an Octopus at Scrabble? I don't know, but I will accept donations to host an underwater Scrabble Tournament. 

So at 77 wpm / 3-10 hours a day, I should be CRUSHING Michael Crighton’s record. Why aren’t you all lining up for my autograph because I’m a bestselling author now?!

My hypothesis: it's because no one really writes 77 wpm. I got that score because I was re-typing words already on my screen. It’s a pure measure of hand-eye coordination — my brain was hardly involved. What I’m saying is: TYPING is different from WRITING.

To measure what I actually WRITE, when I’m making up the words in my head and making my fingers digitally materialize my brain thinkings, I had to run my own little test. For science, I timed myself for a full minute while working on the current chapter I’m writing. Since writing tends to go in fits and starts, I ran the test five times. I don’t think this is a statistically significant sample size, but I’m a writer, not a statistician, and if you hadn't already guessed, this isn't real Science.

The results: my low was 20 wpm, and my high was 45 wpm. My five-trial average clocks in at about 33.6 wpm. That’s almost exactly 50% the speed of my fastest typing, so based on this very informal study, my hypothesis is that one WRITES at about 50% the speed they can TYPE.

So I thought about these results. I’m not a trained writer, so maybe writers with more experience are closer to Michael Crighton’s average wpm, right?

Wrong. Here’s a list of the average (self-reported) words published authors write per day. It ranges from about 500 words/day to MC’s unreal 10,000 w/d. The mode, or most frequently reported, w/d falls between 1,000 to 2,000 w/d. 

At that rate, the standard writer could feasibly publish 2-4 books a year. Which, in fact, seems like a normal, reasonable goal.

Okay, now for Stage 2:  let’s translate those numbers into food. 

(When your life accomplishments are only worth three bananas.)

The amount romance authors make per book is hugely variable. To avoid jumping down that rabbit hole (which will have to be it’s own separate post some day), I’m just going to use the one statistic I’ve read about new authors going the traditional publishing route. 

Let’s say you first get picked up by a major publisher. Let’s say it’s Harlequin, which rumor has it, doesn't pay very well but happens to be one of the biggest romance publishing houses. You’re a first-time author, so they’re offering you advance of $3,000 - $5,000 for your first book. Whee! (But hey, don’t forget to set aside like half of that for taxes). Your royalties on each additional book sold — once published — are basically negligible (Harlequin pays out 6-8% of the book's price), so let’s say it’s $0.05 cents per book. You sell 1,000 books, you’ve made $50 in royalties before taxes (congratulations).

If you’re prolific, at this rate you’re publishing 4 books and year and making $20,000 a year in advance and maybe a few hundred bucks in royalty. Fortunately, you’re so poor you’ll still qualify for tax credits on healthcare, so you have that going for you. You’ve picked up a part-time job in a restaurant, right?

(Help us, Aladdin... our parents are writers.)

Obviously that’s not sustainable if you're supporting yourself and the luxurious lifestyle of your cat, but if your books sell well, your subsequent advances will increase. In the romance novel world, the big thing these days is to sign a multi-book deal, where you promise to write three or more related books within a certain time frame, and you get like $25,000 guaranteed for your advance. And then you can negotiate your contract with more leverage. I don’t really know the ins and outs yet, but it's not that relevant here.

If you self-publish, it’s a whole different ball game: you keep the majority of profits per book sold. The challenge is that you’re getting $0 in advance, so no amount of financial security is guaranteed. You also have to pay your own editor, pay for cover design, pay to have paper copies printed if you choose to do so to supplement eBook sales… so you’re pulling a lot of money out of your pocket up front and then just hoping for a return. It’s risky business. But if you’re a slower writer, self-publishing might be for you. You can do it on your own timeline, write 500-1,000 words per day, and just put out your book when it’s ready. This also assumes you either have another job to supplement your income, or you’re a stay-at-home mom/dad and your loving mate-person supports your writer lifestyle while you supposedly make sure the proto-humans you’ve created don’t put something poisonous into their mouths on your watch.

Since I’ve decided I want to be a Professional Full-Time Writer so I can independently support all the future pets I plan to accumulate, 2-3 books a year obviously isn't going to cut it....

The results are in: to be a "real" writer, I need to write at least 2,000 words per day, working 5 days a week, 6-8 hours a day. That includes editing my work as I go, brainstorming, and also spending about an hour a day building my stupid social media presence. That’s about 2 months per book, plus a month of editing and submitting to publishers before I even start making money.

*** In the comments: how did you do on your WPM test, and does it accurately reflect how much ass you kick at Scrabble?