Steven Johnson, author of The Ghost Map, points out the insanely fun/bizarre text stats for books available on Amazon. You can find stats on everything from average words per sentence, to cost per word:
Text Stats is a pretty wonky page — everything from some of the “readability” indices, to overall word count, to what Amazon calls “Fun stats” like “Words per dollar.” (Quotes you never hear at Barnes and Noble: “This copy of Infinite Jest is such a bargain at only 39,574 words per dollar!”)
For you writers, Seth Godin sums it up nicely:
Basically, short, simple sentences not only sell more books, but spread ideas farther and faster. The really cool part is that authors have fingerprints. From one book to another, we keep the same style.
I’ll let you know as soon as the stats for Escape 101 go up. Or, maybe I won’t, if the words per dollar stat is too outrageous…:)
