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How long does a book take to read?

An 80,000-word novel takes about 5 hr 8 min to read at an average adult pace, and about 8 hr 36 min to hear as an audiobook. Enter a word count or drop in a manuscript to time yours.

Your manuscript

Estimates for 80,000 words.

Reading time
Reader Pace Time
Slow reader 200 a minute 6 hr 40 min
Average reader 260 a minute 5 hr 8 min
Fast reader 320 a minute 4 hr 10 min
Audiobook 9,300 an hour 8 hr 36 min

Reading aloud at a launch

A 10-minute slot at a launch event holds about 1,500 words, read at a comfortable 150 words a minute. Cut the excerpt to that, then read it aloud once with a timer; nerves speed most people up.

Your 80,000 words would take 8 hr 53 min read aloud.

Where the numbers come from

The silent-reading speeds are the low end, the mean, and the high end that a 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies found for adults reading fiction in English. Non-fiction runs slower, at about 238 words a minute on average. Audiobook runtime uses the 9,300 words per finished hour that ACX gives for most narrators.

Treat every figure as a guide. Dialogue reads quickly and dense description slowly, and a narrator's pace is a choice.