New Leaf Vote for April 2018 • It's All Relative: Time

[orlok]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Arrow page count is way way way off base.

Given a normally formatted pBook, it's roughly 380 pages.

How many words on average are you assuming each page would contain? The Arrow book is fairly large type, and I've taken a quick sample of average word count - around 280. That is lower than the usual average of 300-350 for a paperback, so I'd say the "real" number is nearer 400 pages.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by orlok

How many words on average are you assuming each page would contain? The Arrow book is fairly large type, and I've taken a quick sample of average word count - around 280. That is lower than the usual average of 300-350 for a paperback, so I'd say the "real" number is nearer 400 pages.

I would go with 350-400 depending on the typesetting. So could it be that the Arrow book is a large print edition given how many extra pages it has? And why would Amazon choose the Arrow edition for the Kindle page number file since it's rather misleading as to the size of the book?

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by latepaul

TBH I nearly asked for a word count but I thought that might be imposing having already asked for a page count.

Story is this: a long time ago (2007) I started a project to re-read all the Harry Potter books before the final one came out. In order to do so in time I had to set pretty ambitious targets as I'd left it late. So I wrote myself a spreadsheet to track my progress. I soon discovered I averaged 60 pages/hour.

Now I use what may be considered the great-grand-daughter of that spreadsheet to track my reading. And although I do track word count, most of the spreadsheet still refers to pages. Trouble is I rarely read on paper any more. So I tend to get the page count of the paperback edition from Amazon and use that. I have a section of the spreadsheet where I can enter all the different measures (Kindle pages, locations, epub page numbers, calibre locations etc) and convert between them. This also allows me to switch between different methods of reading the same book and still record in a common format - pages.

So 'pages' is a bit of a problematic measure for estimating time to read. OTOH word count, whilst better in terms of a measure of the size of the book, isn't necessarily better for time estimates because reading pace can vary with the content of the book, how I'm enjoying it, how easy the language is etc.

For example of the 16 books I've read this year so far, the words/page varies from 206-386 with an average of 281. So the size of a page varies a lot. But my words/min reading pace varies from 179-247, average 211 - which is almost as much variability.

I get a better estimate once I've started reading the book because then I can calculate a rate based on the current book only.

Sorry for rambling, some of you might be interested, some will probably be repulsed by the very idea

Oh and I just got the email to say Making History is now on loan to me!

I too track reading time, but not words, even though I have the output on Calibre via the Count Pages plugin. I might toss this into my spreadsheet for this year and set up the words/min formula.

[GreyWolfsGhost]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I would go with 350-400 depending on the typesetting. So could it be that the Arrow book is a large print edition given how many extra pages it has? And why would Amazon choose the Arrow edition for the Kindle page number file since it's rather misleading as to the size of the book?

My guess is it was the info given to Amazon by the publisher. It uses the same cover as the Arrow versions so my guess is that was the version used when they created the eBook.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by GreyWolfsGhost

My guess is it was the info given to Amazon by the publisher. It uses the same cover as the Arrow versions so my guess is that was the version used when they created the eBook.

That actually sound like it may be the way it is. But what I don't get is why the Arrow pBook edition is using such wonky formatting to inflate the number of pages.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

I don't suppose you would be willing to share your spreadsheet?

Here it is. Apologies that took a while. I needed to add some sort of notes to make it understandable and I was away for the weekend.

[Dazrin]

Thank you! I am traveling and internet is spotty at best, so it may be next weekend before I can check it out.

[Dazrin]

I was just checking on my hold status for Making History and found that I was next in line which means I might get it in time for next week's discussion.

Literally 5 seconds after I closed the library tab my phone buzzed with a new email notification...Making History is now available. Yay!

[Bookpossum]

It’s a reasonably quick read, though you do have one or two other demands on your time, like the cookie owner!

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

It’s a reasonably quick read, though you do have one or two other demands on your time, like the cookie owner!

That's for sure. Fortunately, most of my reading time is on my commute so I get about the same amount of reading time most weeks.

@Latepaul, great sheet there. For me, I prefer having all years in the same sheet and, while I played with recording actual time read each day a few years ago, I decided that was too granular for me and didn't warrant the extra effort.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

@Latepaul, great sheet there. For me, I prefer having all years in the same sheet and, while I played with recording actual time read each day a few years ago, I decided that was too granular for me and didn't warrant the extra effort.

Thanks. Ironically I am now thinking of simplifying it. I'm not sure I need/want to record time spent any more. I'll see. For whatever reason, the rate I've been reading this year is much greater so I'll have to either update the spreadsheet or re-work it at some point anyway (it has a fixed max of 61 books/year)