The title is very self-explanatory. I decided to experiment for a month to track words instead of books. Yes, I’ve managed to complicate something so simple. Although, I have a good reason. I am a slow reader, as in I usually read at a speed of 180 words per minute. And my original idea for this experiment was to keep me motivated to read, possibly to read bigger books. Every time I look at a book with more than 400 pages, my first thought is how many weeks or even months it will take me to finish it. And that discourages me. So I was on the hunt for a way to allow me to fall in love with reading, no matter the size of the book.

How the idea came to be

One day in February, I found a YouTube video about reading 30 books in 30 days and, to my surprise, the books weren’t counted from cover to cover. Usually, whenever I see videos like these, people read them at incredible speed (compared to mine!) and choose shorter books like novellas, short stories and graphic novels. Although, in this video, a book was represented by 60 000 words. And that got me thinking.

At the time, I was reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus, and it seemed it was taking me longer to read The Lost Symbol at a speed of 2 minutes per page against 1 and a half minutes for the McManus’ book. So, I grabbed the calculator.

I counted how many words were on a full page for each book. The Lost Symbol had a little over 400 and One of Us is Lying had about 300. And right here is the first problem. The Lost Symbol has larger pages and smaller font compared with One of Us is Lying. Obviously, it was taking me longer to read a single page, it had more text. Then, in one hour, I read 30 pages of The Lost Symbol and 40 of One of Us is Lying. When I multiplied the pages I read by the number of words, I discovered that I read the exact same amount of words in one hour for each book. I was, in fact, reading at the same speed.

My slowness wasn’t real. I was just comparing two books that have different size pages. And at that moment, I realised it wasn’t a fair system to simply count books read. How can I count The Lost Symbol as one book and One of Us is Lying as another one book when both are so different in size? So, I decided to try it out. To forget the conventional way of tracking my reading. To ignore the number of books I was reading from cover to cover. To avoid how many pages I was reading every time I picked up a book. And just focus on reading.

To help me, I prepared an excel spreadsheet which I had so much fun doing – I’m such a nerd! – to count how many words I was reading. Since word count is something a reader doesn’t have access to, I took the time of the audiobook versions and multiply it by a speed of 150 words per minute. And then I let the computer do the math.

The reading experiment

10th March

Last night, I finished The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. My second this month (the first one was The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, I started reading in late February), and I don’t feel like I read that few. Looking at my spreadsheet, I’ve been reading a little over 2 hours every day since the beginning of the month, which is double my usual time, and yet I only read 2 books. Although, I feel like I’ve read more. And looking at this number is discouraging. I feel like all this time I’m putting into reading is not translating into books. I don’t feel like I’m being rewarded. Now, it’s time to see if this experiment can change that.

Total word count: 189 308
80 000-words-book read: 2,4

12th March

Just finished re-reading Saga Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan, and you know what… I don’t feel like a read 1 book. My Goodreads says I did. The Storygraph says I did. And my reading tracker app says I did. Yet, I don’t feel like it. In the same way that finishing The Lost Symbol and The Love Hypothesis felt like more than 2 books read, reading Saga feels like I read less than a book.

Considering a comic book one book is like drinking a glass of water and saying I’ve drank my water intake for the day. It’s not enough. It’s small, quick, and most of the pages are pictures. I love comic books, and they are a great and fun way to tell stories, although I can’t consider a comic book and a 400-page novel only ONE book. It demotivates me to read big novels because those take sssoooo lllloooonnnngggg to finish. But I want to read bigger books. Can you see my problem?

Total word count: 213 561
80 000-words-book read: 2,7

20th March

I just realised something: I’ve finished Deception by Teri Terry (third book), and I have no idea how many pages I read each day. I would just read for about an hour or until I was satisfied, and log in my time and page number to my spreadsheet. But I never calculated how many pages I was reading. And that leaves me in a kind of numb sensation. I don’t feel the pressure to compare how many pages I read today VS yesterday. And I can still compare word count and time, but I just don’t feel that need. And maybe because counting words will always be such big numbers, I don’t feel like it’s ever too little.

I’ve been eyeing the book to see how deep or how far away I am to the end but haven’t been paying much attention to times, words, pages and, for that matter, even books. At this point, I have no idea how many hypothetical 80 000-words-books I’ve read. I’m just reading every day. And I’m having a lot of fun. I don’t know if it is because I’m doing something new or if it’s really the way of tracking, but I’m always excited for the next time I can add another log.

Total word count: 320 301
80 000-words-book read: 4

29th March

I’m in the most amazing reading mood I think I’ve ever been in. I’m finishing one book after another AKA Evolution by Teri Terry (the amazing conclusion to the Dark Mater trilogy), and I just want to keep reading more and more. I’ve already started reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, the ultimate proof that tracking words will help me tackle big books or not. I’m not putting any pressure on myself to finish it quickly, because I’m well aware that the story can get a bit much, and I want to be able to take any breaks if I feel like I need them.

By now, I have almost a full month of reading tracked by words, and I don’t compare what I read each day, even though, I can. It’s strange. I can see on which days I read more or less, but that doesn’t bother me. I don’t know if it’s because counting words are always big numbers, and I kind of lose the sense of what that means. One thing is for sure, no matter how many words I read, I have no idea how many pages they represent, and that is helping a lot. I don’t feel any pressure of reading a certain amount of pages every day.

Total word count: 483 667
80 000-words-book read: 6

Final thoughts

I think the primary thing that happened was a shift in my mentality. I detached from the idea that a book was something enclosed between two covers and instead saw the actual commitment I was putting into every book I read. Using 80 000 words as a threshold, allow me to see that reading The Lost Symbol would represent two books instead of one, and so, I wasn’t that preoccupied with how much time it was taking me. Meanwhile, reading something short like Saga would not give me that same level of satisfaction.

Also, avoiding page count every time I read was a huge improvement. I often compared and felt hopeless when I didn’t read a good amount of pages, especially in big books. I would realise how much time it would take me to finish the book at that speed and put me off reading. With that out of the way, I focused on making time for reading.

I’ve already filled the excel spreadsheet with my daily reading from January and February – thanks to my reading tracker app for having all that recorded. I’ll be continuing for the rest of the year to see if March was just a good reading month or if this new way of tracking is all I ever needed. So far, it’s working wonderfully!

Total word count: 514 527
80 000-words-book read: 6,4
Actual books: 5 read, 1 DNF, 2 currently reading

If you enjoyed this post, maybe go check out the first reading experiment I did this year: Reading the Last Books I Bought! And keep tuned for more reading experiments in the upcoming months.