Page counts refer to the total page count within a book, including both front and back matter but excluding blank pages. Page counts play an essential role in printing costs as well as design decisions like selecting paper stock stocks for printing projects.
Printing costs are calculated per page; therefore books with more pages will cost more to produce due to more text and image space on each page and require additional printing presses for payment.
Page count can also be an excellent criterion when choosing books for readers. A longer reading time may indicate more substantial writing, while for others it could signal too long or dense paper.
Publishers often rely on page counts as an indicator of book length. A standard novel typically runs anywhere from 80,000-100,000 words or 300-400 pages, while shorter texts like novellas typically span 20K-50K words or 100-200 pages respectively; an epic novel may exceed this total by far.
At its core, an author and publisher jointly determine the number of pages for their book. There are no hard and fast rules dictating page counts; rather they depend on genre, style and audience considerations.