What does this manuscript checker do?
Before you send your book to an editor, an agent or Amazon KDP, it pays to clean it up. This free manuscript checker reads your whole book in seconds and shows you three things: how long it is (words, pages, reading time and chapters), formatting problems that make a book look unprofessional, and style habits that weaken your writing. Every problem is highlighted in your text, and formatting problems can be fixed with one click. Your manuscript is checked in your browser — it is never uploaded.
How to check your manuscript
- Drop your Word (.docx) or .txt file, or paste a chapter.
- Choose your genre to compare your word count with typical books.
- Click “Show” on any issue to see every place it appears in your text.
- Click “Fix all formatting” to clean spaces, quotes, dashes and ellipses — then copy the cleaned text or turn it straight into an EPUB.
Word count by genre
Publishers and readers expect books in each genre to fall within a typical range. These are common guidelines for debut novels:
| Genre | Typical word count |
|---|---|
| Literary & general fiction | 70,000–100,000 |
| Romance | 50,000–90,000 |
| Mystery & thriller | 70,000–100,000 |
| Fantasy & science fiction | 90,000–120,000 |
| Historical fiction | 80,000–100,000 |
| Young adult | 50,000–80,000 |
| Middle grade | 30,000–55,000 |
| Picture book | 300–800 |
| Memoir | 70,000–90,000 |
| Nonfiction / self-help | 40,000–70,000 |
| Novella | 17,500–40,000 |
Self-published books have more freedom, but books far outside these ranges can feel too thin or too long to readers of that genre.
Formatting problems the checker fixes
- Double spaces after full stops — a typewriter habit; books use one space.
- Tabs and spaces used to indent paragraphs — indents should come from your paragraph style, or they break in ebooks.
- Straight quotes ("…") instead of curly “smart” quotes.
- Double hyphens (--) instead of an em dash (—), and three dots instead of an ellipsis (…).
- Spaces before punctuation, missing spaces after full stops, extra blank lines and trailing spaces.
Style checks
Style notes are suggestions, not rules — but they point to the places editors usually mark. The checker finds very long sentences (over 35 words) and paragraphs, -ly adverbs and filler words such as “very”, “really” and “just” (shown per 1,000 words so you can compare chapters), possible passive voice, “started to / began to”, clichés, accidental repeated words (“the the”), and three sentences in a row that start with the same word. It also lists your most-used words so you can spot personal tics.
Consistency checks
Mixing American and British spelling (color / colour, gray / grey, toward / towards), writing chapter headings in different ways (“Chapter 1” and “Chapter Two”) or spacing em dashes differently all look careless in print. The checker flags each one so you can choose a single style.
Readability score
The Flesch Reading Ease score rates text from 0 to 100 — higher is easier. Most popular fiction scores between 70 and 85, and plain-English nonfiction between 60 and 70. The grade level shows roughly how many years of school a reader needs to follow the text comfortably.
Track your writing progress
Set a word-count goal and check your manuscript each day. The tool remembers your word count in this browser, shows how many words you wrote today, your writing streak and a 14-day chart — a simple way to keep going until the last chapter.
Word-count ranges are common industry guidelines (checked October 2026), not hard rules.
What it finds
- Formatting problems that cause trouble in ebooks and print, such as double spaces and inconsistent punctuation.
- Overused words — your top words with counts, so you can spot habits like “just” or “really”.
- Readability (Flesch score and grade level) and the share of dialogue.
- Chapters and headings detected in the file.
Fix it in one click
Press 🧹 Fix all formatting to clean the common problems automatically, or fix them one type at a time with Show / Fix. Then copy the cleaned text, download it as .txt, or download a report to share with an editor.
Readability scores explained
A Flesch score of 60–70 (about grade 7–8) is plain English that most adult readers find easy. Literary fiction is often lower, children’s books higher. Use it as a guide, not a rule.
Next step: make the ebook
Press 📘 Turn it into an EPUB to send the cleaned text straight to the Word to EPUB formatter. Your manuscript is saved in this browser — nothing is uploaded.