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Rognog

I think my formulas are messed up. I just finished a 54,000 word audio book and calculated six finished hours but it turned out to be only five. How do you guys figure out how many finished minutes an audio book will be based on number of words or pages? BTW let's assume 12-point font and all that stuff...
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Bruce · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:37 am Post subject:

I usually gauge something under 10,000 words an hour* so your estimate of 6 hours wasn't too far off by that calculation. Maybe you read this faster than normal? Maybe there were many shorter words, ala Hemingway? I do hear all kinds of reading speeds in the books I listen to, but fast is a common trend.

Side note on voice quality: I'm listening to a great book every evening now (if you like chemistry and physics) called The Disappearing Spoon. It details the discovery of each of the elements in the Periodic Table. The narrator has a small speech impediment, he occasionally makes that hissing noise that comes out the side of his teeth(?), but I don't care. It's very interesting and he interprets it so well!

B

*relaxed read 150 wpm = 9,000 wph, normal read 160 wpm = 9,600 wph, Hemingway 11,000 wph
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Bish · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:41 am Post subject:

For what it's worth, I use the following formula (cribbed from other posters here, but it seems to work for me).

54,000 words (or 216 pages @ 250 words per page)

... at 150 wpm:
Minutes to read = 360
Hours to read = 6

If you did it in 5, that's 180 wpm... maybe you should lay off the espresso before recording Wink

I guess it's all down to the content, some has a higher "urgency" factor that lends itself to a higher wpm read.
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Rognog · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:45 am Post subject:

I use 150 words per minute but I do speak a bit fast, so maybe I should squeak it up to 155 words per minute. This book was 153 pages long. However, some of the pages had only one line with a section or chapter heading. Now that I think about it, that was about 20+ pages worth, but I calculated based on number of words. Hmm...
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Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:12 am Post subject:

word count divided by 9600 for the total hours.
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Rognog · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 9:42 am Post subject:

This was non-fiction and I wasn't zipping along. I think the 20+ pages that had only one line contributed to the time it took to narrate it.

I like Jeff's formula too, so maybe it's best to use multiple formulas and see where they average out...
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bobsouer · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:05 pm Post subject:

Tom,

Any time I'm not sure about timing, I use Pat Fraley's formula of recording 3 pages of representative material and then editing those pages down giving me pretty reliable estimates of how long it will take to record the whole thing and how long the finished audio will be.
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Rognog · Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:59 am Post subject:

Great advice, Bob. Thanks!
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