There is also one person that said "at the average reading speed of about 60 pages an hour...". IMHO, that's very fast. My average reading speed is around 35-40 pages an hour (lets assume 37), 45 if I hurry, and 50 if I need to, but then I already feel I'm running through the book. (Measurements are based on the Kindles Time To Read function.)
Well... a "page" is 2400 characters long at this time, because I set it as such in Count Pages. It's the average number of characters on a page in a Del Rey paperback. (I have a lot of them to make sure
) The average length of a word is assumed to be 5 characters (1).
2400 / 5 = 480 words per page.
37 pages per hour = 17660 words / hour, or 295 words/min.
The average reading speed is assumed to be 250 WPM (2), so I'm already 20% faster than average, and I have close to 100% comprehension. 60 pages per hour would be like reading 480 WPM, which I find to be a lot faster than average.
At my speed of reading 37 pages an hour, a 370 page book would cost me 10 hours.
If someone would make an audiobook that also takes 10 hours, they'd need to speak at 300 WPM, which is 5 words per second. I think that this is quite fast for narrating a story. I've never listened to an audiobook, but I know that I don't speak at 300 WPM, let alone that I would narrate a story at that speed.
(1)
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i...sh+word+length
(2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading
"While the average adult reading rate is 250 words per minute with 70% comprehension..."