How long should it take for you to write your book?

How long should it take for you to write your book?
And how much time (daily) do you need to dedicate to your novel so to write it within one year?

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This is a question a lot of writers worry over. Are they doing enough? Are they dedicating enough time? Are they wasting their time? Well let's find out!
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Now we will need to put some constraints on this as there are many alternating variables that comes into play in this situation. I will go forward with these assumptions:

1. You are either writing a standard novel, at a standard length, or are writing a standard epic fantasy novel, at a standard epic fantasy length.
2. You are an average typist
   
3. It takes you just as long to revise your novel, and to plan your novel, as you do to write it (more on that later).

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Without further ado, let’s look at the numbers and calculate our totals!

Average person types between: 38 and 40 words per minute

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Standard novel word length: 85,000 words
Standard epic fantasy word length: 160,000

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Let's Calculate!

How many minutes needed to type a standard novel: 85,000/39= 2,179 minutes, or 36.5 hours (roughly)
How many minutes to type out an epic fantasy novel:​ 160,000/39= 4,103 minutes, or 68.5 hours (roughly)

​​A writer’s planning stage varies by their writing style, their planning style, and the complexity of their books. It is impossible to put an exact number on how long it should take you to plan out a novel, so instead I give you a reasonable estimate. A good rule of thumb for how long it should take for you to plan your novel would be as long as it takes for you to write it. So take how long it would take for you to type out your novel and double it.
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As for revision, that—like planning a novel—is impossible to gauge as every writer is different. But to keep it simple, let’s give ourselves the same rule as before: it should take you the same amount of time to revise your novel as it takes you to write it. So the final calculation will be:

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How long will it take for you to plan, write, and revise your novel:

For a standard novel: 85,000 words/39 words-per-minute= 2,179 minutes*3  (plan, write, revise)= 6,537 minutes, or 109 hours (roughly).
For an epic fantasy novel: 160,000 words/39 words-per-minute= 4,103 minutes*3 (plan, write, revise)= 12,309 minutes, or 205.15 hours.

Now remember: these are all rough estimates made to give you a round-about answer to the question of how long should it take for you to write your book and how much time daily do you need to dedicate to your novel to write it within one year.

So now we get to the second part of our calculations: writing your book in a year.

Let’s take 365 days and minus 52 days (let’s say you didn’t want to write on Sundays to give yourself a break), leaving us at 313 days. Let’s minus the holidays and your birthdays from that (because let’s face it, it’s really hard to not be distracted and do other stuff in those days): So let’s minus New Year’s Day, Valentines, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, your birthday. (I’m only counting holidays that are most likely to be taken off for vacation and for time to be spent with family). So we sit at 304 days.

So...
85,000 words/304 days=279 words per day=7 minutes of writing
160,000 words/304 days=526 words per day=13.5 minutes
WAIT!!!
If we calculate it that way, we would be assuming you would plan for those few words that day, write those few words that day, then revise those few words that day.
Writers don’t work that way. Most of the time, they plan the full novel first (somewhat, depending on the type of planner you are), then write the full novel second, then revise the full novel third.

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So instead we have to calculate things like this:

Standard fantasy novel: 109 hours (full time it will take to plan, write, and revise)/304 days= about 25 minutes a day of working on your novel.
Epic fantasy novel: 205.15 hours (full time it will take to plan, write, and revise)/304 days= about 41 minutes a day

Now if we don’t miss a day on our writing (I’m going to assume you have a beautiful schedule full of free-time and no unforeseeable problems), those numbers will be feasible, but unforeseen days do happen. Responsibilities rip us away from our manuscripts. We can’t predict them. They just happen. Soooo, here’s another rule of thumb: cut your daily ability to write by half to compensate for unforeseen events and problems that will arise in your daily routine.

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That means, that for our hypothetical equation, and for our hypothetical books that will equal exactly the word counts we’re guessing at, it would take you:

Standard fantasy novel: 109 hours (full time it will take to plan, write, and revise)/304 days= about 25 minutes a day*2= 50 minutes a day of working on your novel to finish in one year.
Epic fantasy novel: 205.15 hours (full time it will take to plan, write, and revise)/304 days= about 41 minutes*2= 1 hour and 22 minutes a day of working on your novel to finish in one year.

So throughout this post you have the basic equations you need. Change the numbers around to calculate for your own writing speed, how many words are in your novel, how many days a year (roughly) you take off from writing, and (roughly) how much time you need to cut to deal with unforeseen events. See how long it will take you to write your full novel. Heck, calculate for doing it in half-a-year.

Now you know how much time you have each day to work on your book instead of being on Youtube or Facebook!!!

If you liked this post, read the next one here:
​How Much do You Need to Earn as an Indie-Author or Self-Published Author to Quit Your Day Job?