Books for Selection - Number of Pages

[EvaDar]

I notice there are quite a few books listed for selection that don't include the number of pages. Sometimes you can find this information on other sites, but often not. Because I have two other jobs in addition to my fun work with OBC, I wouldn't be able to take a book of 400 or more pages. So, I may be missing out on some great books because I don't choose the ones without pages listed, even though many of them sound interesting.

I wonder if there is a way the number of pages could be prioritized for the book selection listing, or if there could be a range given by the author if they can't be more specific.

Thanks.

[NetMassimo]

My limits are not that tight but a book of 1,000+ pages would be a problem for me too so I'm interested in this issue.

[unamilagra]

The other problem in addition to some books not listing the number of pages is that the number listed is sometimes wildly inaccurate. Recently I saw one that was listed at around 80 pages, and when I went to check it out on Amazon, it was over 600 pages. There are other cases where the reverse has been true - Amazon shows the book with much fewer pages than is listed on OBC. I'm not sure why this happens. Maybe the author just takes a wild guess at the word count when entering the book information? My recommendation would be to always carefully check other sources before accepting a book if the page count is important to you.

[EvaDar]

The other problem in addition to some books not listing the number of pages is that the number listed is sometimes wildly inaccurate. Recently I saw one that was listed at around 80 pages, and when I went to check it out on Amazon, it was over 600 pages. There are other cases where the reverse has been true - Amazon shows the book with much fewer pages than is listed on OBC. I'm not sure why this happens. Maybe the author just takes a wild guess at the word count when entering the book information? My recommendation would be to always carefully check other sources before accepting a book if the page count is important to you.

Yes, I also thoroughly research the book elsewhere before choosing it. And it's is definitely true that sometimes the numbers are wildly off. I wonder if the number of words shows up instead of pages some times when it says 98,763 pages. Also, I think OBC has tried to standardize the page number rubric, with the 250-word average per page. So, a 50-page children's book with 17 words per page, won't be listed with the same number of pages as a 50-page political book with 400 words per page. So that affects it. But anyway, a more accurate representation of the length of books would be really useful.

[Francesco1]

I have a novel almost ready to be sent to OBC. I must admit my page count is different depending on the program used to prepare it. Using Pages and 1.5 line spacing adds 50 to 75 pages to the story, resulting in a page count of 350+. Using 1 line spacing amounts to approximately 289 pages, and that is with 12 point and Times Roman. My unedited word count is 107,386.
I haven't a clue about true page count. I have been told as an author to not use page numbering; since the reader may change font for readability in which case the page count will change and is not transferred to the numbering of the pages. So I assume that every site or venue is going to have a different approach; which unfortunately leaves the reader in a flux. I would assume if you see a page count in the 10's of thousand you are looking at a word count. AS EvaDar mentioned above.

[NetMassimo]

@Francesco1 your explanation is very useful to understand the terms of this problem. Thank you for your comment.