Information
Chapter Length Matters
Jan
How many chapters should a nonfiction book have?
Most nonfiction books have between 5 and 20 chapters. Any less than 5 and your chapters may be running long or may contain too many ideas. Some books, usually with short chapters, can have 50+. There’s no “right” answer to this question.
Does chapter size really matter?
Why does it matter how long your chapters are? It matters because of:
- what readers need
- what a chapter is
Understanding what a chapter is can help when you’re deciding how to structure your book. A chapter is one of the main ways to divide and separate your book into distinct ideas.
Generally, a single chapter of a nonfiction book is:
- a single cohesive idea, and/or
- a step in the process you are describing, and/or
- a single argument or position
It can be one or all those things. So, the length of your chapters should be determined by the number of words it takes to present that idea, step, or argument fully, without over-explaining it.
So, how long should a chapter be?
Rule 1. Short enough, and long enough
If chapters break your book into digestible ideas, the right chapter-length comes down to presenting those ideas. Longer chapters risk dragging and losing your reader’s attention. Shorter chapters are easier to digest, but they run the chance of not giving the reader enough information.
Putting those together, here’s the first “rule” of chapter length. A chapter should be:
- Short enough to hold a reader’s interest
- Long enough to give that reader what they need
Rule 2. Shorter is better than longer
Your readers want:
- all the information they need to solve that problem
- only what they need (and no more)
Authors are great at the first part of a book and lousy at the second, so err on the side of short chapters over long chapters. You’re far better off leaving your readers wanting more than you are boring them.
Rule 3. It’s good to be average
With chapter word counts, it’s good to be average. Being average meets readers’ expectations. Longer chapters come with the possibility of turning readers off.
If a reader looks through your book on Amazon and that next chapter feels like it never comes, they’ll feel intimidated. The average nonfiction book is about 50k words, and most nonfiction books have about 12 chapters. That number should neither a goal nor a constraint. It’s just a convention that fits within your reader’s attention span.
One thing to remember about average chapter lengths is that they’re driven by:
- how much information most readers need to understand a good chapter topic
- the average attention span most readers have in absorbing a single idea
Rule 4. The Goldilocks limits
Chapters can be 500 words, or even 10,000. It all depends on how much you dive into an idea and how far you go with that idea. However, you never want your readers to think:
- “That chapter was too short,” or
- “That chapter was too long.”
Generally, if a chapter is under 1,000 words, it might not be a whole idea or chapter. See if it makes more sense to combine it with another chapter. If your chapter is over 5,000 words, see if you can break it into different ideas. Remember, books are structured in parts, chapters, and sections. A part is simply a set of chapters that go together and fall under a larger idea.
Rule 5. Use chapter breaks wisely
If you break your chapters into small enough pieces, readers will have no trouble following them. A chapter might be a single idea, but each section should present a coherent piece of that idea. Readers won’t even be intimidated if they flip through a long chapter ahead of time.
Rule 6. Formatting makes a huge difference
Presenting material with charts, graphs, images, headings, bullet points, and other special formats makes the content feel more manageable. Don’t make your readers work harder by laying those concepts out in a way that’s difficult to take in. Readers won’t buy the book if your book looks like you didn’t put the work in. When it comes to small, tightly packed, unvarying text versus loose, flowing text, the flowing text will win out every time.
Rule 7. Your chapters need not be the same length
Having chapters of similar length doesn’t matter. Varying the flow can make the book read better, depending on what you’re saying. Your book is written for your reader, making chapter decisions based on what makes the best book for them.
Rule 8. There are no rules
There’s no bestseller formula when it comes to chapter length. The only real rule is to make your chapters work for your readers. If readers understand each chapter, connect the ideas, and flow easily from one to the next, that’s all that matters. A book’s structure is never about confining the Author. It’s about serving the reader.
