Pathfinder 1E Word Count for WotC, Paizo, other adventures?

lejanius said:

oh, this is for print. With PDF you can do anything in terms of length

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With more and more PDF publishers offering POD at places like lulu.com, this probably isn't as true as it used to be anymore.

jaerdaph said:

With more and more PDF publishers offering POD at places like lulu.com, this probably isn't as true as it used to be anymore.

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In my experience with EN Publishing's Lulu.com offerings, overall it's good to keep the total number of pages down, as the price of the book (to the publisher -- IIUC, Lulu.com lets publishers decide what the final price of the book will be, but charges the publisher a set amount per copy based on format and page count) is based on the number of pages. To make sure the price point stays reasonable (most publishers are going to want to make a profit, after all), absolute page count is an issue.

From a layout perspective, on the other hand, there is a certain degree of freedom in PDF compared to print. AFAIK Lulu.com doesn't offer signature binding, so the actual number of pages is still more or less arbitrary -- not limited to a multiple of 16 or 32 as it would be in print. It works out neater for perfect-bound books if the number of pages is even, and for saddle-stitched (stapled) books the number of pages should be divisible by 4, but that isn't a hard-and-fast requirement.

Wicht said:

Well, yes actually. The AP contains an adventure and supplementary information. The Paizo modules are just straight up adventures. The Pathfinder APs are 96 page perfect bound soft cover books and the Pathfinder modules are 32 page staple bound books. Also the modules have "Pathfinder Module" on the front and the adventure paths have "Pathfinder Adventure Path" on the front. Also the modules are $14 and the Adventure paths are $20.

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Thanks Wicht. I guess I'm used to module being the size of the H - E series that WOTC put out, lasting the 3 levels or so, and being around 100 pages or so. The extra $6 is well spent on the AP then, IMO.

Folks are pretty close on the money for Paizo adventures.

We generally assume about 900 words for a full page of text. Stat blocks and illustrations reduce this number, obviously.

For a 32 page module, we ask our authors to provide 20,000 words.

For a Pathifnder adventure path installment, we ask the authors to provide 35,000 words. The remaining 30,000 or so words in a Pathfinder AP volume consists of new monsters, support articles, fiction, and the like.

Some more fun statistics we assume:

• A half-page illustration counts as about 500 words.
• A full-body illustration of an NPC counts as about 400 words.
• A spot illustration (such as an item or an NPC's head) counts as 150 words.
• An average encounter in an adventure is about 500 words.
• The opening of an adventure, including the Adventure Background and Adventure Synopsis should try to be no more than 5% of the total adventure's length (this works out to about a page for a module, and about two pages for an Adventure Path installment); less words is always better for the background/summary.
• A 2-page Pathfinder AP style new monster is 1,400 words, counting the stat block.
• A 1-page, hardcover Bestiary style monster entry is about 550 words (including stat block).
• High level adventures tend to take up more room on an encounter-by-encounter basis, partially due to larger stat blocks, but mostly due to the fact that you have to account for a much wider range of possible PC actions and abilities.
• 2,000 words of workable writing progress is considered an average day's work.
• 5,000 words of workable writing progress in a day is considered phenomenal.