The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread: Amazon's Text Stats

Update (Oct 30, 2012): Apparently Amazon's Text Stats have disappeared. A shame.

Text stats at Amazon aren't new, they've been around since 2007, but I never knew about them until I read Gabe Habash's article, Book Lies: Readability is Impossible to Measure.

Apparently, for every book in Amazon's "Search Inside" program you can see its readability statistics as well as how these stats compare with other books.

Gabe Habash writes:

One of Amazon’s best and little-known book features is its “Text Stats” page, a tiny link that’s tucked three-quarters down a book’s page under the “Inside This Book” heading. Clicking the link takes you to a page with graphs and numbers, the most interesting (and objective) of which is word count. It’s always fun to compare War and Peace’s word count (590,000) to major textbooks, and to see that Tolstoy smashes most of them with his stern Russian will.

But there are other figures on the page, and these are meant to tell you, as close to objectively as possible, how readable and how complex the book is. We put these measurements to the test to see how accurate they are in determining how readable and how complex a text is. The six books we sampled are Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, Where I’m Calling From by Raymond Carver, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, and Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

As an example, let's take Great The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Here's the book page for The Scarlet Letter. About 2/3 down the page you'll come to the heading: Inside This Book (this is after both the Customer Reviews, and the Customer's Also Bought headings). Here you will learn what the first sentence of the book was as well as various statistically improbably phrases, capitalized phrases, a concordance of 100 most common words and (drum roll please) a link that will take you to a place called "Text Stats".

If you click this link, you will learn that the Fog Index for The Scarlet Letter is 14.1 (the number of years of education you need to understand the text), the Flesch Index is 14.3 (90-100 would indicate a book very easy to read, 10 would indicate one abominably difficult) and so on.

Now, what's really fun is comparing books. The first thing I did is look at Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but it didn't have readability statistics. In a mischievous mood I pulled up Twilight, but while it did display certain readability statistics, the text stats were missing.

Disappointed I headed on over to The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight but that one didn't have text stats either.

Not to be put off, I looked at Great Expectations and was not disappointed. Apparently you need four less years of education to read Great Expectations than you would for The Scarlet Letter and the words Dickens used are, overall, 4% less complex than the ones Hawthorne chose.

I'm not sure how useful this is, but it would have been fun to compare, say, the text stats of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to Twilight.

Links:
Book Lies: Readability is Impossible to Measure
The Scarlet Letter
Text Stats for The Scarlet Letter
Great Expectations
Text Stats for Great Expectations

Indie Film Makes $200K in iTunes Sales

An Indie film, made with absolutely no money and a DSLR camera, has grossed over $200,000 and climbed into iTunes Top 100 Movies.

Read the story here.

Just the other day I was wondering why I hadn't heard about a no- or low-budget movie that made good money from being sold on iTunes. Speak of the devil.

Of course, that it had Stana Katic in it didn't hurt.

As the technology to make films becomes ever cheaper, and avenues of distribution for indie projects expands, it seems likely that movie fans will encounter an increasing number of movies made well outside the Hollywood system. We’ve seen under-the-radar hits in recent years – from Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi to The Blair Witch Project on to recent sensation Paranormal Activity – but those films still eventually had studio involvement before they hit it big. Such is not the case with For Lovers Only.

The film, which was helmed by twin filmmakers Michael and Mark Polish, had a production budget of $0 and an advertising budget to match. The title, which is a black- and-white tale of old lovers reconnecting in Paris, was shot with two actors (one was Castle’s Stana Katic, the other Mark Polish) and on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II still camera. Thanks to Twitter and word of mouth, the film currently sits in the number 2 slot in the iTunes Romance category, the four slot on the indie films chart, and is in the top 100 in rentals on the mega site. Oh, and it’s made $200,000 so far.

While the Polish brothers talk of the film as a way to “get back to the real energy of filmmaking,” this isn’t your father’s version of the movie business. The filmmakers’ experiment revolved around the idea of shooting a film for nothing and then letting an audience find it through the magic of new media. So far, it’s been a complete success. Star Stana Katic’s tweets about the project ignited a firestorm amongst her fanbase – who then spread word far and wide across the Internet.

Read more at Movies.com, 'For Lovers Only' Demonstrates No-Budget Films Can Become Hits in the Internet Age

Links:
No Budget Indie Film Has Grossed $200K in iTunes Sales
'For Lovers Only' Demonstrates No-Budget Films Can Become Hits in the Internet Age
How the Polish Brothers Are Raking It In With a Stealth, No Budget Movie

Flipboard: Best Free App Ever

Actually, Flipboard is one of my favorite apps, whether free or paid, and the one I use most often.

I love the way the app displays twitter feeds like a virtual newspaper, taking the links tweeted and displaying the first part of the article so I can easily scan it to see if I'm interested in viewing the whole thing.

From Flipboard's description in the App Store:

Named Apple's iPad App of the Year and one of TIME's top 50 innovations of 2010, Flipboard is a fast, beautiful way to flip through the news, photos, videos, and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Flickr, and Instagram. See your social media in a magazine layout that is easy to scan and fun to read. Catch up on the latest stories, videos and posts from popular publications and people such as National Geographic, The New Yorker, Wired, Rolling Stone, Oprah, Forbes, Robert Scoble, and Brain Pickings' Maria Popova. Share articles and photos, comment on posts, and like or favorite anything. Customize your Flipboard with sections created from your favorite news, people, blogs, and topics.

Well said. I know this might sound like a paid advertisement, but I'm not receiving anything in exchange for this review. Truth is, I was going through my feeds on Flipboard and having trouble coming up with a story or topic that grabbed me when it came to me: Blog about Flipboard! It really is, for me, a killer app and the unbelievably great thing is that it is free! Something that is important to me as a starving artist. :)

If you're interested, go check it out at the iTunes store.

Link:
Flipboard at the iTunes Store

Lawrence Block has a blog!

The first book I read by Lawrence Block was, "Telling Lies for Fun and Profit."  It was great!  I highly recommend it, not only for writing tips but because it is a pleasure to read.

Now, thanks to John Locke, LB has his own blog! He writes:

... John Locke got a ton of press for selling his one millionth Kindle book. And, as soon as he did, he released a book he’d had waiting in the wings all along. He called it How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months, and offered it not at his usual price of 99¢ but $4.99 (or $9.99 in paperback).

Yeah, right, said the snarky voice that lives inside my head. Who could resist paying five bucks to learn how to write mediocre fiction?

I told the voice Thanks for sharing and ordered the book. This was on June 21, and I started reading it on my Kindle that night. I read the rest of it the following day, and started re–reading it the day after that. And the next day was June 24, my birthday, and I started the day doing something I’d been absolutely certain I would never do. But what the hell, I figured I was finally old enough. So I joined Twitter.

Because John Locke told me to.

That day or the next, I asked my web guy to set me up with a blog. Five years ago I was on a book tour in aid of The Burglar on the Prowl, and each night I made myself write a newsy paragraph on the day’s events, and emailed it for him to post on my website. It was a pain in the ass, and it didn’t accomplish anything, and that was the end of my blogging. But now I wanted a real blog, one I could manage myself, and that’s what I asked for.

Because John Locke told me to.
....
John Locke’s background is in sales, and he blogs and tweets with the aim of increasing his own sales. He wants you not only to buy his books, but to help him get others to buy them. As he explains, the actions he takes online are frankly manipulative; he outlines a method of gaining a reader’s allegiance and illustrates it with a blog about Joe Paterno and his mother that leaves one gaping. The damn thing seems so calculating. . .

But here’s the thing. It’s not cold and calculating. It’s warm and calculating.

Read the entire blog post here.

I had been wondering if I should buy John Locke's book; after reading LB talk about Locke I don't see how I can not buy it.

Links:
Telling Lies for Fun and Profit
Block's Amazon Author Page
Lawrence Block's Blog
Thanks to Dean Wesley Smith and @PassiveVoiceBlg for spreading the news about LB's blog.
How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months

Joe Konrath's Indicators of Quality Writing

Here's another great post by Joe Konrath. There has been a lot of talk lately about the criteria for good writing. Here's what Joe has to say:

According to my criteria, a novel is a success if:

1. The writer intentionally sets out to do something within the story.

and

2. As a result of deliberation and execution, the story meets the writer's expectations.

And also:

So, to recap:

If you're a writer, make sure you understand why you're writing what you write, and have a clear idea of what you want those words to do. Then you'll never write crap.

If you're a human being, make sure you truly understand why you say and do the things you say and do. An unexamined life ain't worth living. And an unexamined life that tweets or posts reviews on Amazon is a big waste of carbon. And oxygen.

Go Joe!

Link:
Be Deliberate

One Star Reviews And What To Do About Them

Sometimes great discussions get going in the comments section of a post. This often happens on Dean Wesley Smith's blog and I'd like to share one short exchange with you because, even though I haven't yet received a one star review, it resonated with me.

Blarkonon 15 Jul 2011 at 1:25 am

If you’ve got a couple of novels up and you write one that is, not to put to fine a point on it, reviewed like a turd, should you pull that one because it’s damaging your “brand”? (you’ve mentioned that writers can’t really tell how good their work is, which is how this hypothetical book gets up their in the first place – how do you crap filter your own stuff if all writers are bad judges of their own work?)

I’m guessing the strategy of working to get a large number of novels published is an effort to “cast a bigger net” and establish a “Brand” of sorts – catch a reader with one and you might get them to read others. If you have a book that seems to be attracting horrible reviews, is it worth it to keep it up there? (as it might scare curious readers away from reading your other works, even if they’ve liked some of them)

Dean's reply:

dwsmithon 15 Jul 2011 at 1:31 am

Blarkon, wow, the day I start reacting to any review by a failed writer is the day I hang up my computer keys and run away. Reviewers are failed writers. Who cares what they say. Leave the book alone and keep writing is my suggestion because you give those idiots power, you are lost in your own head.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I’m a long-term writers. I have had fantastic reviews and ugly, nasty reviews and couldn’t care about either to be honest. I just keep writing and that’s what I do.

Link:
The New World of Publishing: The Death of an Indie Writer’s Career

12 Million Kindles, 38 Million iPads and 80 million iPhones: That's a lot of ereaders!

According to Digitimes,

Foxconn currently is also likely to produce 12 million units of Kindles for Amazon, and 38-40 million units of iPads as well as 80-85 million iPhones for Apple a year ...

That's a lot of ereaders! If this is any indication, the trend toward ebooks is going to continue.

Link:
Foxconn reportedly lands 10.1-inch tablet PC orders from Amazon

A Quirky Success Story

I love reading about success stories, so I owe a thank you to PG over at the Passive Voice Blog for posting about Brunonia Barry's article, "Adventures in Self-Publishing".

Brunonia was one of the pioneers of self-publishing, having published her first book, The Lace Reader, in 2007.

She writes:

The Lace Reader has been pretty successful. It’s a New York Times and international best seller, and it was the first American novel to win the International Women’s Fiction Festival Baccante Award. It has been translated into more than 30 languages.

I don’t believe that any of this would have happened if we hadn’t self-published. Obviously, I am thrilled that we did it the way we did. The self-publishing to big publisher success story gave the book a marketing hook that it would not have otherwise had. But there was so much luck involved along the way. All told, this was a very expensive process. When our invoices were tallied, it cost us more than $80,000. Even so, we did not have the kind of marketing budget it would have taken to sufficiently spread the word to readers. Without a great deal of luck and timing, we could easily have lost our money.

Her story, her path to success, is fascinating reading.

How To Get Smashwords Files From Your Computer To Your iPad

When I bought my iPad the first thing I wanted to do was transfer Kindle books from my computer to my iPad. It's easy to do this with kindle books on your Amazon account, but not so easy to do it with books downloaded from Smashwords. Well, if you have a PC, here's what you do (hopefully it isn't very different for a mac):

1) Attach your iPad to your computer with the cable provided and launch iTunes on your computer.

2) In iTunes there is a blue ribbon on the right side of the screen with headings like LIBRARY, STORE, DEVICES, etc. Under DEVICES you should see your iPad. Mine shows up as "karen's iPad". Highlight this.

When you highlight the name of your iPad the main window will change and, at the top of the screen you will see the headings: Summary, Info, Apps, Music, TV Shows, Podcasts, Books, Photos.

3) Highlight "Apps"

4) The screen will change to show the apps you have on your iPad. The apps that allow file sharing will appear at the bottom of the screen.

Highlight the Kindle app.

5) At the bottom of the screen, on the right-hand side, you will see an "Add ..." button. Press it.

6) There should be a folder named "My Kindle Content" in your Documents folder. Navigate to it.

Open up this folder, select the mobi and mbp files of your choice and lick "Open".

That's it! The book or books of your choice will now be downloaded onto your iPad.

If I've missed something, let me know.

Azul Media Player for iPad: 5 out of 5 stars

One of the reasons I bought my iPad 2 was to have a portable device that could play video files. Some folks listen to music when they write -- and I do that as well -- but my favorite thing is to listen to old TV shows I've watched dozens of times. I don't feel any curiosity about what will happen next, but I like the background noise.

Anyway, when I bought my iPad I was new to the apple universe but the App store was easy to navigate and I found a media player quickly. Perhaps too quickly. I'm not going to say which media player I bought, but I wasn't happy with it because it didn't play AC3 sound files. There is a file conversion program that will convert sound files into another format, but I didn't have good results.

I began to think about spending $100 for a media player I could hook up to my television but I didn't want to spend the money, and I wanted something portable, so I decided to try The App Store one more time. After reading many reviews, chose Azul.

* insert trumpet sound *

Every AVI file I have tried to play on my iPad using Azul has worked perfectly! Interestingly, even some of the converted files that the other media player had trouble with, Azul has been able to play just fine.

Links:
Azul Website
Azul on iTunes

Mike Bennett: One Among the Sleepless

Careful, this podcast is addictive. I was going to listen to just one episode, to get the gist. Then I was sucked in by Mike Bennett's marvelous voice and prose and, before I knew what had happened, found myself listening to episode number four.

I've been interested in podcasting lately and have thought about using the medium to record a short story and wanted to get a feeling for what sort of podcasts were out there so I stopped by podiobooks.com. After listening to Mike's podcasts ... well, he is definitely a tough act to follow.

"One Among The Sleepless" is a contemporary fiction novel set in Brighton, England about sex, death and noisy neighbors: a thriller with a rich vein of dark humor that flows from both the narrative and the dialogue of the characters. It's a largely character-driven story; the people and their various shifting relationships compel the plot forward through sometimes subtle, sometimes brutal plot twists towards the final, nail-gnawing climax.

Mike Bennett has other podcasts up on his site, and even a few videos.

Links:
Mike Bennett Podcast.com
One Among The Sleepless
Podiobooks.com

How To Get A Free Canadian ISBN Number

One of the great things about being a Canadian writer is that ISBN numbers are free. Unfortunately, the process of obtaining an ISBN can be frustrating and, until today, I hadn't found a good step-by-step guide.

Randolph Lalonde has written a brilliant guide to what can be, especially the first time, a bewildering process.

Here are his steps for obtaining an ISBN number for an electronic book:

Step 1: Head on over to http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/ciss-ssci/index-e.html
Step 2: Click “Join CISS” (CISS stands for Canadian ISBN Service System)
Step 3: Click Yes – I Accept (Unless you disagree with the conditions on that page)
Step 4: Fill in the publisher registration information. If you’re an independent in Canada, you’re still considered a publisher, so you’re in the right place.
Step 5: Click SUBMIT and follow the instructions on the following page. There’s nothing complicated there. You’ll eventually be asked to wait for an email from the administration.
Step 6: You should receive that approval email on a workday (Mon-Fri). If you get an email telling you that your account wasn’t approved, read it carefully for a reason and either re-apply (if you chose a publisher name that was already in the system, or filled in the form incorrectly, for example), or give the number in the Email a call if there is a more complicated problem. [The current number is 1-866-578-7777 (Select 1+7+3), and God help you.]
Step 7: After you receive the Email with your ISBN prefix and publisher name (keep that Email forever!!) head on back to http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/ciss-ssci/index-e.html and login using your new username and password.
Step 8: Edit your profile if there’s anything you need to alter.
Step 9: Click on MANAGE LOGBOOK (Left hand panel)
Step 10: Click ASSIGN NEW ISBN
Step 11: Fill in the form according to the particulars of your product.
Step 12: Send a copy of the product to Library and Archives Canada. The current address is on the site, I won’t post it here just in case it changes.

EBOOK SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS
There are special instructions for eBook publishers, I verified these with the Government rep on the phone, step by step, even though she was impatient and rude during the entire process.

Step 1: For eBooks the Product Form is [Electronic Book Text]. The term EBOOK is not in this site’s vocabulary yet, but I was told via Email and on the phone that “Electronic Book Text means eBook”)
Step 2: You skip [Product Form Details] entirely, don’t change it.
Step 4: Enter in the [Title] [Subtitle] [Subject] [Publisher Name] normally.
Step 5: For [Projected Publication Date] enter the date you expect your work to be published OR the date it was published.
Step 6: I was told I didn’t have to fill in [Publication Date] but I did anyway because the website insists. I suggest you fill that field in, otherwise the site will probably reject the form.
Step 7: Set [Publication Status] to [Active]
Step 8: Leave [Number of Pages] at 0, since eBook pages are different from one reader device to the next. (The rep on the phone told me 0 is the correct setting for eBooks as well).
Step 9: Leave the Replacement ISBN Information section empty if this is the only ISBN you’ll be using for the eBook. If you’re using this ISBN to replace another, please email the administration through the form at the top of the page. I’m not going to make any assumptions regarding that option.
Step 10: Fill the [Contributor Information] in normally. If you’re the author, select [By (author)] and fill in your name. Skip the rest of that contributor form unless you have to add other contributors by clicking the [ADD] button.
Step 11: Select the language the book is written in under [Language Information].
Step 12: Under [Rights Information] leave it set to FOR SALE WITH EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS IN SPECIFIED COUNTRIES and select [Canada]. According to the representative, only the Publisher sees this setting, and it has no impact on international use of your ISBN. I asked more than once, which she found really irritating.
Step 13: Skip the entire section called [Supplier Information]. (The rep was insistent that I didn’t change or enter anything into that section).
Step 14: You should get a message telling you that you’ve successfully created an ISBN for your eBook. Click on [Manage Logbook] to see it listed on your account.

Don't forget to submit a copy of your work to Library and Archives Canada (Randolph Lalonde has instructions for that as well).

For writers in the USA, I've also written an article with information about purchasing ISBN numbers in the States.

Good luck!

Links:
Getting Your Free ISBN In Canada, by Randolph Lalonde
Library and Archives Canada