Blase Eight by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Chapter 12- Some Math

I’d like to re-introduce some very elementary math we all learned in grammar school. No, don’t run away. I believe that it has some relevance in any discussion of the dismal non-science of publishing.

Though there are a few indie reviewers who state that they read and review somewhere between seven and twenty books per day, they are a miniscule minority. I could make any of a number of applicable sarcastic comments about this, but will refrain as the claimants are both statistically insignificant and likely to be offended. I try so hard to be nice. Sob.

For the rest of us to have read one book a day over the long term is likely an exaggeration. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that we did. Let’s further say that we knew how to read at birth and that we will live 100 years. We know that as of mid-December of 2015 AmawayOnSteroids had in excess of 8,000,000 titles for sale or available free and that that number is constantly growing.

Simple extrapolations mean that over the course of a lifetime we will each read 36,500 books or say we did,(365 x 100) which in turn means that, all books equal, there is a 4.6%

chance that an avid reader will read any given book somewhere during their extended lifetime, and an .046% chance that they

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will read it during any given year. (36,500 divided by 8,000,000

and .046 divided by 100.) If a .046% chance sounds attractive, consider that if we remove the percentage sign the number becomes .00046. Complicate that by using the methodology of your choice to refine that percentage, taking into account that most avid readers make extensive use of their local library, ten cent closeouts, and the millions of free e-books available; that your local library has more than 8,000,000 titles available; that the best classics are always freely available, and that a miniscule number of indie books ever exceed a 36,500 AOS sales ranking.

You will shortly see that this is estimated to equate to 3-15

sales per day. Then ballpark your odds of getting people to pay money for your effort when they don’t even know your name. There is nothing wrong with swinging for the fences; but it seems the most common of senses to first find out if those fences are 350

feet away or 5,000, which always results in a fly out.

Trust me on this one as it involves more assumptions and numbers and it may seem to work against what you may have come to think of as my agenda in this book. But, it is also true that if we take the most optimistic of assumptions, the average book will be read 24,840 times per annum in America alone.

Hmmmmn. Sounds viable working with an average. It might be more appropriate to work with a mean, but I have no idea how to do that. As discussed elsewhere there is significant upward

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skewing of numbers with the top ten authors 2014 estimated incomes ranging from nine to nine hundred million. .......... On the other hand those at the bottom of the pile don’t make a nickel.

I’m out of here. This is giving me a whopper of a headache.

No wonder that mathematicians get paid better than writers. I know; the people who compiled the best-selling book of all time thought it appropriate to devote an entire section to it; but despite the successful effort they didn’t collect any royalties either.

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