Software Accurately Predicts Books' Popularity By Analyzing Their Sentences (grammar, analysis, quote)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
"I'll never agree! That's worse than being a slave in prison," Ella glared as she went out the door.
And this comes from the UK Telegraph:
Scientists find secret to writing a best-selling novel
Quote:
Computer scientists have developed an algorithm which can predict with 84 per cent accuracy whether a book will be a commercial success - and the secret is to avoid cliches and excessive use of verbs
This particularly hits home:
Quote:
Less successful work tended to include more verbs and adverbs and relied on words that explicitly describe actions and emotions such as “wanted”, “took” or “promised”, while more successful books favoured verbs that describe thought processes such as “recognised” or “remembered”.
Location: Splitting time between Dayton, NJ and Needmore, PA
1,184 posts, read 4,042,807 times
Reputation: 767
On the flip side, I would question if this supposed "analysis" is truly valid. The Telegraph article states: "To find “less successful” books for their tests, the researchers scoured Amazon for low-ranking books in terms of sales." In the Popular Science article, it was stated the researchers identified the types of books by "comparing the books' word use and grammar with how often they've been downloaded. For some books, the computer scientists also considered Amazon sales data awards such as Pulitzer Prizes. The books were of all different genres and types, ranging from novels to poetry, and from love stories to sci-fi." So the decision being made by the software is NOT through an objective means focusing on the quality of the prose, but on whether or not another text - which has no correlation to the text being examined - sold well.
Separately, there does not appear to be any inclusion of the "reason" for the original text to be purchased or downloaded in the algorithm. We have no knowledge if the text that is used for the baseline of the evaluation was purchased for voluntary personal interest, as part of a requirement for a class, or because of another reason.
As far as I am concerned, a publishing house that uses this software to make business decisions will be one that is not in business for too long.
On the flip side, I would question if this supposed "analysis" is truly valid. The Telegraph article states: "To find “less successful” books for their tests, the researchers scoured Amazon for low-ranking books in terms of sales." In the Popular Science article, it was stated the researchers identified the types of books by "comparing the books' word use and grammar with how often they've been downloaded. For some books, the computer scientists also considered Amazon sales data awards such as Pulitzer Prizes. The books were of all different genres and types, ranging from novels to poetry, and from love stories to sci-fi." So the decision being made by the software is NOT through an objective means focusing on the quality of the prose, but on whether or not another text - which has no correlation to the text being examined - sold well.
Separately, there does not appear to be any inclusion of the "reason" for the original text to be purchased or downloaded in the algorithm. We have no knowledge if the text that is used for the baseline of the evaluation was purchased for voluntary personal interest, as part of a requirement for a class, or because of another reason.
As far as I am concerned, a publishing house that uses this software to make business decisions will be one that is not in business for too long.
As a published author, I have little faith in software of any kind deciding what is good or bad in writing. I posted the article as it just might provide a hint for aspiring writers.
Each author his his or her own "voice" and must let that show in their writing. To do anything else is false and readers will quickly pick it up.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
