Manuscript planning
Words to minutes, and on to hours: paste a script, a chapter or a speech and see it counted and timed as you type — or open the actual manuscript and separate front and back matter. Either way you get the speaking time in minutes, finished audiobook hours, a per-finished-hour budget and production time at a reading pace you set, and nothing is uploaded.
For a script, a chapter, a speech or anything you have not got as a file. It is counted as you type, in this tab; nothing is sent anywhere.
0 words
Ready.
How the number is derived
Every value comes from the words in your own file and the three inputs above. Change an input and the whole chain moves.
Words to minutes
Speaking time is the word count divided by the pace. These are the three paces the calculator offers; paste your own text above for the exact figure, since dialogue, pauses and hard names all slow a read.
| Words | Measured, 140 wpm | Typical, 155 wpm | Brisk, 170 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 43 s | 39 s | 35 s |
| 500 | 3 min 34 s | 3 min 14 s | 2 min 56 s |
| 1,000 | 7 min 09 s | 6 min 27 s | 5 min 53 s |
| 2,500 | 17 min 51 s | 16 min 08 s | 14 min 42 s |
| 5,000 | 35 min 43 s | 32 min 15 s | 29 min 25 s |
| 10,000 | 1 h 11 min | 1 h 05 min | 58 min 49 s |
Assumptions and limits
The default pace is 9,300 words per finished hour, the planning formula documented in Erin Wright’s audiobook calculator. A performance with dialogue, accents, pauses or technical language can be slower; a brisk non-fiction read can be faster.
The section list is visible so you can correct exclusions yourself instead of trusting an opaque “narrative word” guess made on your behalf.
Next production checks
Straight answers
The default planning pace here is 9,300 words per finished hour, the figure documented in Erin Wright's audiobook calculator. A performance with dialogue, accents or technical language runs slower and a brisk non-fiction read runs faster, so the pace is an input you can replace.
Divide the word count by the reading pace. At a typical 155 words per minute, 1,000 words take about six and a half minutes to read aloud. Paste the text into the page and the minutes update as you type.
About six and a half minutes at 155 words a minute, the pace this page starts from. At a measured 140 words a minute it is a little over seven minutes, and at a brisk 170 a little under six. The Speaking time card shows the figure for your own text at whichever pace you pick.
About 1,550 words at 155 words a minute, 1,400 at 140 and 1,700 at 170. Paste a draft and change the pace to see where yours lands; the minutes are worked out from the words you actually have, not from a page count.
EPUB, text-based PDF, DOCX and TXT, or text pasted straight into the page. A scanned PDF has no text to count and needs OCR first. Every section is listed so front and back matter can be left out chapter by chapter.
Finished hours times the rate per finished hour you enter, and production time is finished hours times the production hours per finished hour you enter. Both are your planning inputs, not a quote. Add a list price and your royalty percentage and it also works out the royalty-share breakeven.
No. The file or the pasted text is read inside this browser tab and nothing is sent anywhere, which is why a manuscript under NDA can be estimated here.