Pace goes by many names: rate of delivery, speed, how fast. There are two aspects to pace: the general speed that you read at, and change of pace. Both of these are extremely important to making a good audiobook.

As with the volume exercises, remember that you are not trying to "read it right". Expect that sometimes the way you are reading will sound very wrong.

This time you are going to concentrate on your reading speed.

• Exercise 1: Use whatever volume seems appropriate for the content in the passage. The first time around, just read the passage from the selection at normal speed.
• Exercise 2: The second time, read the entire selection a bit faster than normal. Not horserace speed, but pick up the pace. Do this several times, each time a little bit faster than the time before.
• Exercise 3: The third time, read everything a bit slower than normal. Read it once first at normal pace, to get the standard firmly in mind, then read it a little slower, then again, even slower this time. Don't drag it down to a word-pause-word-pause-word slowness.

Do these exercises with each of your selections.

Next you will work on developing control over change of pace.

• Exercise 4: First time through, start at normal speed, and increase the speed gradually as you go. Try to pace your speed, so you don't reach breakneck speed before you are done. If it helps, imagine you are going down a hill, a little bit faster with each step.
• Exercise 5: Try the same passage again, this time starting fast and ending slow, like you were going up a hill.
• Exercise 6: Next, every time you come to a comma, semi-colon or period, alternate, either speed up or slow down.
• Exercise 7: Find a selection with a two person dialogue. Read first one character's words faster than the other, then reverse them.

You should get a trusted second opinion on what is the best reading speed for your audiobook. If possible, find someone who has not already read your book. Record a minute or so from your book three times. Pick a selection that has some fair amount of detail in it. Don't worry about background sounds. Each time, concentrate on your general pace (you can speed up and slow down too, for effect), but concentrate on the overall pace: what sounds right to you, a bit slower, and a bit faster. If you time yourself reading, there should be a noticable difference between fast and slow.

Ask your 'second opinion person' to listen to all three recordings, and to just focus on pace. Ask your friend which sounds the best, and ask if some in-between speed would have been better. You may be surprised. It is a common problem for new author-narrators to read too quickly. Perhaps this is because you are so familiar with the story that you don't need as much time for them to sink in. But a new listener has to absorb all the details. If you read too fast, the listener will have to struggle to keep up with you.