Christopher Hart
Fifty Shades of Success
The Bestseller Code
By Jodie Archer & Matthew L Jockers
Allen Lane 242pp £20
Computers are already fighting our wars for us, managing our economy, taking away our jobs and beating us at chess. Now, to cap it all, it seems they are presuming to advise us on how to write novels as well. Or, at least, bestselling novels. This ought to be annoying, but I have to admit that the results of computer surveys into what makes a bestseller are actually of compelling interest and full of the sorts of facts and stats that some of us really enjoy. Did you know, for instance, that there is a specific BISAC code for ‘historical romance novels with Vikings’?
Jodie Archer is a former publisher and literary consultant and Matthew Jockers is a co-founder of Stanford University’s Literary Lab. The value of the kinds of programs he has worked on has already been proved. By close verbal and textual analysis, ‘stylometrics’ and pattern recognition, it is fairly
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk