Author Topic: This might be how they are calculating KENPC (Read 7845 times) Tweet

WRPursche · « **on:** July 01, 2015, 02:12:24 pm »

I went back to the original document files of all my books. At least for me, the KENPC is almost exactly equal to the 'character count with spaces' divided by 1000.

The calculation works for all the fiction books I have data for, ranging from 20K to over 100K words. YMMV, but this could explain some of the range people are getting when comparing their total word count to KENPC. For me, the range was pretty tight (180-200 words per KENPC) but others are reporting a wider range. If they are using a character count, as it appears, this would explain the discrepancy and would be a much easier way to calculate a uniform length without going through the trouble of adjusting fonts, page breaks, etc.

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noob · « **Reply #1 on:** July 01, 2015, 02:15:10 pm »

that looks close for me as well...

Andrew Ashling · « **Reply #2 on:** July 01, 2015, 02:24:16 pm »

Short Story: Family Games

Words: 3,447
Characters with spaces: 17,390
Characters without spaces: 14,051
KENPC (v1.0): 33

TheGapBetweenMerlons · « **Reply #3 on:** July 01, 2015, 02:30:54 pm »

If they're using character count, which seems like a reasonable starting point, it's only part of the calculation. They've also said illustrations and such will be factored in, and my experience supports that. In a nonfiction book that I haven't got around to pulling from KDP Select yet, there are several illustrations, and the KENPC is calculated to be 40. If it was based only on character count divided by 1000, the KENPC would be around 27.

(Edited for accuracy after my first coffee of the day....)

BEAST · « **Reply #4 on:** July 01, 2015, 02:37:00 pm »

Short Story - 48,343 Characters; 47 Zonpages
Novella - 175,344 Characters; 185 Zonpages
Novel - 386,443 Characters; 325 Zonpages
Novel #2 - 377,533 Characters; 382 Zonpages

It seems to work well for my short which has no chapter breaks. My novella has 15 chapters and is a little off with you equation. The first novel has 28 chapters and the second has 27. Still close but it's not perfect. Right now this may be the best way to estimate for a ballpark figure.

WRPursche · « **Reply #5 on:** July 01, 2015, 03:22:03 pm »

I checked a number of other books I have access to the information on. For all of them (14 titles) this calculation is within 10%, and in most cases, within 5%. All of these are fiction, and 3 have limited illustrations (one has a map, the others use images for chapter heads). That's close enough for me, since we may never know the exact algorithm, and even if I do, it really won't change anything for me.
Non fiction and picture books will obviously be a lot different, but I believe this is an okay estimate for fiction. I'd be interested in what others see.

cinisajoy · « **Reply #6 on:** July 01, 2015, 03:24:49 pm »

Hey Maximillion,
Which short? PM or call.

edwardgtalbot · « **Reply #7 on:** July 01, 2015, 03:38:54 pm »

I don't use Word, and in OpenOffice you have to jump through a few hoops to get character count without spaces so all I have is character count with spaces, which is 540,000. Would probably be between 400 and 450K without spaces. My KENPC page count for this book is 697. It's a standard novel with over 100 small images - one at the start of each chapter and for section breaks. So way, way off on the estimate using character count without spaces.

It sounds like character count without spaces may be a decent estimate for novel-length fiction with few images. But a lot of anecdotal evidence so far suggests that the number of chapters has an impact as well, so even there I'd be wary.

BEAST · « **Reply #8 on:** July 01, 2015, 03:52:24 pm »

Quote from: cinisajoy on July 01, 2015, 03:24:49 pm

Hey Maximillion,
Which short? PM or call.

Calling now..

cinisajoy · « **Reply #9 on:** July 01, 2015, 03:55:49 pm »

Quote from: Maximillion on July 01, 2015, 03:52:24 pm

Calling now..

Phone not ringing.

WRPursche · « **Reply #10 on:** July 01, 2015, 04:52:12 pm »

Quote from: edwardgtalbot on July 01, 2015, 03:38:54 pm

I don't use Word, and in OpenOffice you have to jump through a few hoops to get character count without spaces so all I have is character count with spaces, which is 540,000. Would probably be between 400 and 450K without spaces. My KENPC page count for this book is 697. It's a standard novel with over 100 small images - one at the start of each chapter and for section breaks. So way, way off on the estimate using character count without spaces.

It sounds like character count without spaces may be a decent estimate for novel-length fiction with few images. But a lot of anecdotal evidence so far suggests that the number of chapters has an impact as well, so even there I'd be wary.

I was using character count with spaces, not without. So it looks like you are getting page 'credit' for your images. If, for example, you had about 160 images, it would be almost exactly equal to character count /1000 + one page per image.

Andrew Ashling · « **Reply #11 on:** July 01, 2015, 04:57:43 pm »

Quote

Short Story: Family Games

Words: 3,447
Characters with spaces: 17,390
Characters without spaces: 14,051
KENPC (v1.0): 33

In my case, if your theory had been correct, I should arrive at 17 pages. Amazon says 33 KENPC. That's almost 50% off.

Or am I missing something?

edwardgtalbot · « **Reply #12 on:** July 01, 2015, 05:19:32 pm »

Quote from: WRPursche on July 01, 2015, 04:52:12 pm

I was using character count with spaces, not without. So it looks like you are getting page 'credit' for your images. If, for example, you had about 160 images, it would be almost exactly equal to character count /1000 + one page per image.

Hmm, that could be. Out of curiosity I just did an exact count in my HTML file and there are 130 images. That's certainly fairly close. Sounds like Andrew's shorter work is way off unless he has a dozen images in there.

Ian Jaymes · « **Reply #13 on:** July 01, 2015, 05:21:49 pm »

So for my two shortest:

Title pages words char char w/ KENPC
in store space
Probability Fish 5 1184 5496 6637 6
Taxon 5 1046 5566 6589 8

So more words, more characters with spaces, fewer KENPC
And yes I know my table stinks!

GoneToWriterSanctum · « **Reply #14 on:** July 01, 2015, 05:25:00 pm »

This involves math, which frightens me. Stoppit.

Ainsley · « **Reply #15 on:** July 02, 2015, 08:02:38 pm »

Lol this is the most promising thread on the kenpc calc but no one's posting!

VEVO · « **Reply #16 on:** July 02, 2015, 08:13:15 pm »

More samples please. This characters (with spaces) / 1000 = KENPC look promising. For books with images, there are some adjustments.

Did a quick google search and it is pretty easy to find our the characters (with spaces) on Microsoft WORD.

https://support.office.com/en-in/article/Show-the-word-count-and-more--825d4ccd-082b-4578-a621-66dfe27cdf48?ui=en-US&rs=en-IN&ad=IN

Quote

If you don't see the word count, right-click the status bar and click Word Count.

Find the number of characters, lines, and paragraphs

Word also counts characters, lines, paragraphs, and other information. Click on the word count in the status bar to see this information.

Ainsley · « **Reply #17 on:** July 02, 2015, 08:16:44 pm »

Quote from: VEVO on July 02, 2015, 08:13:15 pm

More samples please. This characters (with spaces) / 1000 = KENPC look promising. For books with images, there are some adjustments.

Did a quick google search and it is pretty easy to find our the characters (with spaces) on Microsoft WORD.

https://support.office.com/en-in/article/Show-the-word-count-and-more--825d4ccd-082b-4578-a621-66dfe27cdf48?ui=en-US&rs=en-IN&ad=IN

If you don't see the word count, right-click the status bar and click Word Count.

Find the number of characters, lines, and paragraphs

Word also counts characters, lines, paragraphs, and other information. Click on the word count in the status bar to see this information.

Yes more samples needed. This already seems far more promising a place to start.

VEVO · « **Reply #18 on:** July 02, 2015, 09:17:03 pm »

Anymore sample?

TheGapBetweenMerlons · « **Reply #19 on:** July 02, 2015, 09:49:35 pm »

Another data point from me: I'm down to one book in KU, a novel of about 63.7K words, which will expire from Select on the 10th.

KENPC per KDP: 372
Character count with spaces per LibreOffice: 347108
Small images (flourishes): 12

Dom · « **Reply #20 on:** July 02, 2015, 11:35:34 pm »

So we all know a picture is worth a thousand words. But how many characters is that?!?

PearlEarringLady · « **Reply #21 on:** July 02, 2015, 11:45:22 pm »

Some more data points (all text, no illustrations):

Book 1: KENP 1,217
Chars+spaces: 1,217,393

Book 2: KENP 815
Chars+spaces: 824,845

Book 3: KENP 871
Chars+spaces: 858,554

Gone 9/21/18 · « **Reply #22 on:** July 03, 2015, 12:39:53 am »

I tried this on my short story and one novel and came out more than 10% off on both:

Calculation on short story 33 vs. KENPC of 44

Calculation on novel 636 vs KENPC of 754

41419 · « **Reply #23 on:** July 03, 2015, 02:04:57 am »

Unfortunately, this doesn't cover my enrolled title, which is a weird one...

Word count: 66,728
Characters with spaces: 394,932
Characters (no spaces): 329,932

KENPC: 458(!)

Note that I have no images or anything else weird in this book. The only thing slightly non-standard is that it's non-fiction, so has no dialog, and thus very little "whitespace" in the text whatsoever (very few bullet point lists, no graphs, no breakout boxes, no dialog, no scene breaks, few short paras etc.).

There must be more to it than the formula in the OP.

K. D. · « **Reply #24 on:** July 03, 2015, 03:46:43 am »

Maybe there are some credit algos for nonfiction and shorts as well?

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