How long will it take to record your audiobook? Longer than you think.

Start by estimating the length of the finished product. To get an estimate,

• pick 3 to 5 average pages from your book.
• Count the number of words on each of them.
• Add up the words, and divide it by the number of pages you just counted.
• Figure out how many pages long your book is. Look at the last page number then subtract total blank pages, intro pages, etc.
• Now multiply that reduced page count by the average words per page that you figured out above. That's your total word count.

(If the whole book is on your computer, your word processor can to give you a word count, without doing all this math. Look it up on the help pages.)

Your narration speed will be from 8,000 to 9,000 words per hour.

• Divide the word count you came up with by 8000 (for slower narration)
• Divide the word count by 9000 (for faster narration).

That will give you an approximate idea of the total listening time. But listening isn't recording. To figure out your in-studio time, multiply the listening time by 3. That will give you a fairly accurate idea of the time it will take you to record, including setup and testing, retakes, and breaks (this does not include time needed for editing).