36,000 characters in a telephone book on a double-page spread = 18,000 characters each page. Please keep in mind that these are page counts. There are many more words on a phone book page than what it takes to print on one page.
The average phone book is 8 1/4" by 11", but there are smaller phone books out there too. The largest phone book ever recorded was also a printed dictionary; it was filed at the National Archives in Washington, DC and measured 26 3/4" by 21 3/4".
The majority of words in the English language have been spoken once only. Some languages have more rare words, like French or Latin. The most common word in the English language is "the," followed by "a" and then "an." There are about 250 million words in English today, and about 200 of them are found in most dictionaries.
What is the meaning of life? According to some philosophers, it's community. According to other philosophers, it's knowledge. But the only sure thing about the meaning of life is that it changes from person to person. It depends on which part of which person you ask!
Character densities are discussed in length in the article "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint," in Chapter 8 of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and in Chapter 2 of Envisioning Information. A typical printed phone book is eight inches wide by eleven inches high, so each page has about 50 words per inch.
The first phone books were published in the late 1800s, but it wasn't until the 1920s that the industry began to take off. By 1950, only three companies dominated the market: American Telephone & Telegraph, Western Union, and RCA. In 2000, there were approximately 250 million entries in more than 7,500 phone books in the United States. That's an average of less than four phones per book!
In 2001, the total size of the US phone book market was $1.5 billion. Of this amount, $250 million was spent on advertising.
In 2002, the average price of a phone book was $6.99. And even though sales have decreased since then, the average price of a phone book continues to rise (see chart below).
Phone books use paper because it is easy to print on and inexpensive to produce.
ET utilizes the "quantity of data in a phone directory" as one of such conceptual hooks in the Boston session. I believe I overheard him mention that a normal phone book had 38,000 characters. Is that what I heard? And, while I'm on the subject, do you have any additional convincing instances of this type of metric?
I wonder how long it would take me to read a phone book from start to finish...
Actually, that's a terrible idea. The last time I looked, my phone book was still packed away in a box from when we moved. It probably hasn't been opened since then. This wouldn't be a very useful metric anyway, since phone books vary a lot in size depending on where you live and how old your book is. A phone book for ET's house would be quite small compared to one from here in New York City.
However, there are an average of about 250 names per book, so if we assume an average name length of two lines (or 40 characters) that would mean about 75,000 characters in a phone book. That's not that far off from what ET said: he called it "about 38,000 characters."
Here's another example coming from the world of television programming: The average length of a TV show is about 50 minutes.
A single-spaced word count of 7500 words gives around 15 pages, whereas a double-spaced word count of 7500 words yields approximately 30 pages. This is assuming that you are writing in Microsoft Word and that you have one chapter per page. If you need your book to be longer, increase the number of chapters.
To estimate how long it will take you to write a book, divide the total number of words by the number of words per page. For example, if your book has a word count of 100,000 words, then it will take you 2 years 30 days to write it at an average of 4500 words per day. However, nothing can be guaranteed until you start writing so this is just an estimate.
It's very difficult to give an exact time frame for writing a book. The only way to know is to start typing! But once you do, you'll be able to estimate how long it will take you to write each chapter. Then add up all these times together and you'll get how long it will take you to write the whole book.
20,000 words is 40 single-spaced pages or 80 double-spaced pages. Novels, novellas, and other published books are examples of texts with more than 20,000 words. When utilizing regular margins (1 inch) and 12 pt font, a 20,000 word count will provide around 40 pages single-spaced or 80 pages double-spaced. A few long novels have been written that have over 100,000 words; however, these are usually manuscripts submitted to publishers that are seeking to increase their sales by writing more popular fiction.
A word count is also useful for authors who are trying to avoid large publishing advances. If they estimate that their novel will have 20,000 words or less, then they can submit it to several smaller publishers in hopes of finding one that will take on their work. This way they don't have to spend a large amount of money before knowing if their effort will be successful.
Finally, a word count is important when planning what size print run to order from your publisher. Most books fall into one of three categories: short stories, novels, or nonfiction. Short stories typically range between 1,500 and 7,500 words while novellas tend to be between 20,000 and 50,000 words. Full-length novels are generally between 60,000 and 120,000 words. There are exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking these are the sizes that should appear on your book covers.
It is entirely dependent on the typeface you are choosing. However, on average, there are 250-300 words each page. So a 200-page novel would be between 55,000 and 60,000 words long. This is not that long for modern novels.
Books have always been an important part of our culture. They provide us with a place to escape into another world for a few hours or days. Even though computers are becoming more popular for this purpose, books still have a special place in many people's hearts. In fact, it is estimated that about one million books are sold each day! That's more than three books per second!
The first written records we have come from Egypt around 3200 B.C. At first, they were just notes on papyrus or parchment but eventually someone decided to print these writings out in full color magazines called newspapers. Not only is this interesting from a historical point of view but it shows that even at that early stage books were considered valuable resources that needed to be preserved for future generations.
We now know that books include printed pages bound together with glue or wire. But books have also been made from cloth, paper, and even chocolate!
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