How to track audiobooks alongside the books you read

Audiobooks count as reading. The story, the characters and the time spent are all the same; only the way the words reach you is different. Yet many readers leave them out of their logs, or track them somewhere separate, and end the year with totals that miss a third of what they actually read.

Log them with everything else

Keep audiobooks in the same tracker as print and e-books, marked with their format. One shelf gives you an honest year: how many stories you finished, by any route. A separate list for audio almost always gets forgotten by spring.

What to record that print does not need

1. 1The narrator. A great narrator can make a book; a mismatched one can ruin it. Many listeners end up following narrators the way they follow authors.
2. 2The length in hours, so you can see how much time you spent listening.
3. 3Playback speed if you change it, because it changes how the book feels.
4. 4Whether you listened while doing something else — commuting, cleaning, running. It explains why some books stay with you less.

Pages or hours

If you track pages, use the page count of the print edition so audio and print add up together. If you prefer time, track hours for everything, including print, using a reading timer. Both work. Mixing them without a rule is what makes year-end totals meaningless.

Switching formats mid-book

Plenty of readers listen on the commute and read the same book at night. Log it once, as one book, with both formats noted. It is still one story finished, and counting it twice inflates the year in a way you will notice when you look back.

When audio is the better choice

• Memoirs read by the author, where the voice is part of the book.
• Full-cast productions of fantasy and science fiction.
• Books you have read before and want to revisit without the time cost.
• Romance with a dual narrator, where each love interest has their own voice.

Tracking audio properly often changes how readers see their own year. The busy months that looked empty turn out to be full of listening.