--- title: How to Read More Books: Tony Haile's Advice description: Tony Haile, founding CEO of Chartbeat, shares his best advice for how to read more books each year canonical: https://time.com/4289057/how-to-read-more-books-tony-haile/ author: Tony Haile article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-20T13:42:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:50:11.216Z og:title: How to Read 54 Books a Year og:description: Even if you're insanely busy og:url: https://time.com/4289057/how-to-read-more-books-tony-haile/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt319504a8d919a94a/69888e97ab6d772e1a6a9334/read-54-books-year-advice.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: read-54-books-year-advice og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How to Read 54 Books a Year twitter:description: Even if you're insanely busy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt319504a8d919a94a/69888e97ab6d772e1a6a9334/read-54-books-year-advice.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How to Read 54 Books a Year > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=7d585b30-1517-4a61-8639-ef9517a0c957&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 10 Books Everyone Should Read, According to Successful People [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Books Everyone Should Read, According to Successful People](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Bdu4TTCk.m3u8) (1:07)  _Published 2016-01-27_ by [Tony Haile](https://time.com/author/tony-haile/) ## Tony Haile Apr 20, 2016 1:42 PM UTC by [Tony Haile](https://time.com/author/tony-haile/) ## Tony Haile Apr 20, 2016 1:42 PM UTC When I became the founding CEO of Chartbeat, I realized quickly that there was very little that could have prepared me for doing the job other than doing it. That means that, upon becoming CEO for the first time, you will almost certainly be unqualified for the position. Unfortunately, though, you do not have time to learn everything by experience; you must rely on others. The single most efficient way to do that is to read about others’ experiences. Let’s say you can read 200 words per minute and that each book is roughly 80,000 words.Choosing to spend an hour a day reading means that, by this rough estimate, you could read 54 books in a year. This is a target I try to hit every year, even when my workload seems insane. I do it because I consider reading to be extremely valuable to my job. It’s equally as important to read widely. Read about a breadth of topics, many of which may have nothing directly to do with your chosen field. It might seem strange to read about the design of gambling machines or the Boxer rebellion in China when you have a company to run, but it’s important. Reading books in different fields enables you to start seeing the thread of common patterns and apply them to your own world. It was reading about how the automotive industry evolved in the 1950s that first gave me a sense for how analytics might evolve on the web and inspired me to create Chartbeat. **_Read more:_** [_35 Books Everyone Should Read in Their Lifetime_](http://motto.time.com/4216261/lifetime-book-list) Reading about a diverse range of topics also inspires innovation. Most new ideas aren’t truly new so much as the combination of two previously disparate ideas or entities. If you read widely, your brain will create a new alchemy of ideas that might never have existed before. That’s what inspires true innovation. _Tony Haile is the founding CEO of_ [_Chartbeat_](https://chartbeat.com/)_, the leading data toolset for global newsrooms and an adjunct professor of journalism at Stanford University and Columbia University._ ## Transcript [00:00] [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4289057/how-to-read-more-books-tony-haile/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4289057/how-to-read-more-books-tony-haile/"},"headline":"How to Read 54 Books a Year","datePublished":"2016-04-20T13:42:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-05T08:50:11.216Z","description":"Even if you're insanely busy","url":"https://time.com/4289057/how-to-read-more-books-tony-haile/","keywords":["motto","Books","reading","motto instagram"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt319504a8d919a94a/69888e97ab6d772e1a6a9334/read-54-books-year-advice.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tony Haile","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tony-haile/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt319504a8d919a94a/69888e97ab6d772e1a6a9334/read-54-books-year-advice.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"read-54-books-year-advice","caption":"","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4289057/how-to-read-more-books-tony-haile/","name":"How to Read 54 Books a Year"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"10 Books Everyone Should Read, According to Successful People","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Bdu4TTCk/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-01-27T15:44:41.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Bdu4TTCk.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4289057/how-to-read-more-books-tony-haile/","duration":"PT1M7S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4289057/how-to-read-more-books-tony-haile/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```