Addition to the Projects Statistics

As I’m embarking on my first small audio book production project I came across something that might be of use to Scrivener.

It’s along the lines of the Page Count Options (Statistics > Options section) and that’s the ability to set “Words Per Finished Hour” based on who you, as the author, use as your audiobook production company.

For example, I use Findaway Voices, who list their average “per finished hour” is 9000 words (I checked their help pages), so if in File > Options you could add the ability to include a “per finished hour” value, for example 9000 for Findaway, and in Statistics > Options below “Reading Time” added “PFH Time: [insert time] Hours” (for example PFH Time: 4 hours) where PFH time is calculated by dividing “Words” (top of the Statistics list) by “per finished hour” (as included in File > Options). If no audio book is created the entry is left blank.

I think this function would help authors pre-assessing budgets for when to do an audio book.

In this above example, the audio book would be for a story of about 36,000 word count. I can only speak for Findaway Voices where I get suggested narrators from answers I give, then I can do a sample, and the narrator in question has a cost listed for their work, i.e. what they’d charge per finished hour. If I could simply look at the PFH value under statistics as see it lists however many hours my completed book would be (and the small production project is two hours of PFH) but being able to compare values and therefore, from a number being listed in Scrivener can simply calculate PFH x Cost Listed by Narrator, rather than needing to go through hoops and figure it out it would remove some time consuming effort for an author. Took me ten minutes to find out how much my project would cost. Took me 30 seconds to look at Statistics and the cost listed in the contract and under a minute to multiply in a calculator. Those other 9 minutes could have been used for writing or editing.

I see this as “Quality of Life” feature for the software.

Why not do as custom metadata tab where calculate number Total words/9000 = audio hours and could do different ratios for different audio formats and could have in outline, Could change words per page to 9000 and book pages would be become essentially audio hours

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With all due respect but your suggestion might work if it’s one project? Can custom metadata be used/opened/applied in other projects? I’m speaking of a quick-to-view feature for many different projects. Also, I looked and saw nothing about the custom metadata stuff that offers me the ability to even set up anything you suggested (I’m using the Windows edition btw). I googled about custom metadata and nothing of what I found says that what I was suggesting is possible with it. What I’m suggesting is a “fill in the PFH value once and you get to see the Words/PFH = estimated time” for every project. Then I could open a few projects side by side and look at this value and decide which is the shortest or longest to do next as an audiobook without fiddling with a custom thing to add that could break something inside the software. I generally trust what a software developer offers over customising a software.